Welcome My Lord Sir Christemas!
The Toronto Chamber Choir has recorded a CD of Christmas music, which was released in Fall 2003. Medieval carols are paired with modern settings of the same text, with marvellous results. Medieval and Renaissance Christmas lyrics have a special fascination for many modern composers. With their refreshing frankness and disarming simplicity, and the exoticism of their vocabulary and turns of phrase, the ancient poems have been a favourite source of Christmas texts for composers such as William Walton, Peter Warlock, Gustav Holst and Healey Willan. This recording samples some of the fruits of this fascination, placing 20th- and 21st-century British and Canadian carol settings in the midst of the medieval models that inspired their creation.
| ECCE NOVUM GAUDIUM Anon (14th c.) arr. David Fallis |
SIR CHRISTEMAS William Mathias |
| SWEET WAS THE SONG THE VIRGIN SUNG Anon (17th c.) |
SWEET WAS THE SONG Richard Rodney Bennett |
| THE EAGLE, THE HEN AND THE DOVE Andrew Donaldson |
QUE CREAVIT CELUM (SONG OF THE NUNS OF CHESTER) Anon (13th c.) |
| THERE IS NO ROSE Anon (15th c.) |
THERE IS NO ROSE OF SUCH VIRTUE John Joubert |
| THERE IS NO ROSE Andrew Ager |
HE'S SEEN, HE'S SEEN! Andrew Ager |
| BALULALOW Anon (16th c.) |
BALULALOW Peter Warlock |
| LULLA, LULLA, THOU LITTLE TINY CHILD Kenneth Leighton |
LULLAY MY LIKING Gustav Holst |
| JESUS OUR BROTHER Trad. arr. David Fallis |
WHAT CHEER? William Walton |
| DORMI JESU Andrew Ager |
THE VIRGIN'S CRADLE HYMN Edmund Rubbra |
| NUNTIUM VOBIS Anon. (12th c.) arr. David Fallis |
HODIE CHRISTUS NATUS EST Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck |
| HODIE CHRISTUS NATUS EST Healey Willan |
The Voice of My Beloved: Music for the Song of Songs
The Song of Songs stands alone as one of the most remarkable books of the Bible. Written in ancient Hebrew around the third century BCE, the poem consists of a young woman and man revealing their passionate love for each other in their own voices. Many people find it surprising that this book is in the Bible at all. Its sensuous celebration of sexual awakening, its wondrous and explicit descriptions of the lovers' bodies, and the fact that the name of God is never mentioned seem to place The Song outside the usual themes of Holy Scripture. Christian and Jewish theologians, both ancient and modern, have wrestled with the place and meaning of The Song, often developing allegorical interpretations to explain the book's presence in the Bible. Some of these interpretations require considerable intellectual acrobatics. One commentator, for instance, envisions the woman's breasts as the Biblical figures Moses and Aaron. Another concludes that the word "love" in the poem refers to the socio-political alliance between the house of David and the Jewish community. Most mystical interpretations, however, accept the literal meaning of the poem while insisting that the desperate longing and ecstatic joy of the lovers are fitting metaphors for the relationship between the soul and God. In medieval times the text became closely associated with worship of the Virgin Mary, and was incorporated into liturgies in her honour. Once sections of the poem were accepted as liturgy, it was a short step to their being set to music. The Song of Songs provided composers with occasions to lavish some of their most sensuous musical resources on a sacred text and many rose to the challenge. For this recording we could only select a fraction of the compositions devoted to the text, but we have been able to represent seven centuries of music. All the composers, from John Dunstable to Yehezkel Braun, draw us into the world of The Song - a world strikingly open-hearted and passionate and remarkably at one with nature, in which the passage from innocence to experience is filled not with dire consequences but with the joy of discovery.
| I BEHELD HER RISE UP, MY LOVE Healey Willan (1880-1968) |
NIGRA SUM Pablo Casals (1876 - 1973) |
| HVAD ES DU DOG SKJØN Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) |
I SAT DOWN UNDER HIS SHADOW Edward Bairstow (1874 - 1946) |
| I AM THE ROSE OF SHARON William Billings (1746 - 1800) |
I SLEPT, BUT MY HEART WAS AWAKE Andrew Donaldson (1951 - ) |
| SHIR HASHIRIM (excerpts) Yehezkel Braun (1922 - ) |
MY BELOVED SPAKE Henry Purcell (1659 - 1695) |
| ICH SUCHT DES NACHTS Melchior Franck (c. 1579 - 1639) |
QUAM PULCHRIS SUNT Giovanni da Palestrina (c.1525 - 1594) |
| QUAM PULCHRA ES John Dunstable (c. 1390 - 1453) |
FLORES APPARUERUNT Gregorian Chant |