When you see the title of the English Christmas carol “See Amid the Winter’s Snow,” you have to ask yourself the question in the title of this post.
And the answer is: Probably not. Snow in Israel is very rare. I’m posting a picture below of a historic snowfall in Jerusalem in 2013. Normally, though, there are two seasons in this part of the world: the wet and the dry. If Jesus were indeed born in December, the weather could have been cold and wet but probably not snowy.
Mountains turn up all the time in the Bible. They can be places where God interacts with people, such as Mount Sinai where God gave the commandments to Moses to take back down to Israel, or where someone with “clean hands and a pure heart” can meet with Him, or where a chosen few disciples can see the transfiguration of Jesus. Or people can shout for joy from the mountaintops. And a mountain can also be simply a place from which to speak, with the most famous example being that of the Sermon on the Mount: “Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them.” (Matthew 5:1-2 NIV) Here’s this big crowd, and here’s a high place to sit which happens to be on a mountainside, so Jesus uses it.
Talk about a leading question! The answer is a resounding “yes.” There’s so much to be said about this supposedly simple song that I just don’t know where to begin.
Let me start with a brief summary of the meaning of Hanukkah, or Chanukah (both spellings are simply transliterations from the Hebrew word meaning “dedication”– חֲנֻכָּה ḥanuka), a holiday referring to an event first recorded in the first and second Books of Maccabees, part of the intertestamental books collectively known as the Apocrypha. (These books are not part of the canonized Tanakh [Hebrew Bible] used by modern Jews, though the Catholic and Orthodox Churches consider them part of the Bible.) While the re-dedication of the Temple and the lighting of the menorah are recorded in these books, there is nothing in that original story about the miracle of the long-lasting oil. That story didn’t come until about 600 years later, in the Talmud, a set of commentaries that is at least partly made up of oral traditions. The Talmud says there was only one small flask of properly dedicated oil available, enough to last one day, after the Maccabees had driven out the Roman army and re-dedicated the Temple. But the oil lasted eight days, thus allowing time for new oil to be properly prepared.
Sometimes you don’t need to reinvent the wheel! Joseph M. Martin, the author of the lyrics and composer of the music for our selection “The Awakening” has written a definitive essay about the meaning of this piece, and there’s nothing more I need to say. With his kind permission I’m including a quotation here of his opening statement and then encourage you to follow the link and read the entire piece:
When I was asked to write the commissioned anthem for the 20th anniversary of TCDA (Texas Choral Directors Association), I knew that the piece would be sung first to music teachers and I wanted to encourage them in their work and remind them of how important they are to the lives of our young people.
“The Story Behind the Song” by Joseph M. Martin
So, so interesting, folks! There are three components: the text, the composer, and the dedicatee.
First, the text, a psalm from the Jewish Bible/Christian Old Testament that celebrates God’s omniscience and omnipresence. I have been fascinated with the way the composer, Will Baily, used just a few lines from this psalm. Familiar as I am with the passage, I had never really thought about the specific meanings of some of the words. Working on the song has made me look a little more closely. For instance, what are the “wings of the morning”? Honestly, that question had never occurred to me before. Most commentators say that they’re the sunbeams that stream up from the horizon as the sun rises; indeed, a number of translations use the phrase “wings of the dawn.” Those wings are going to take the speaker to “the farthest sea” or, in many versions, “the uttermost parts of the sea.” There’s a rich visual here: the sun rises in the east; the sea (which for the ancient Israelites would be what we call the Mediterranean Sea) is to the west. So the imagery has the speaker flying, literally, at the speed of light from the east horizon at dawn as far west as the eye can see, but God is there before him. And if the speaker feels overwhelmed by the darkness, he can be reassured that it is no barrier for God. I was reminded of a phrase from the Christian New Testament: “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.” (I John 1:5 NIV)
For over seven years I’ve been writing background posts for the Cherry Creek Chorale’s concert selections. It’s been a great experience all around, with the special privilege of learning about, and in some instances contacting, living composers. I was able, for instance, to contact John Rutter via his Facebook page with a question about the reasons for his many commissions from America, and he graciously responded. That was a thrill, to be sure.
This past Tuesday night provided another thrill when the lyricist for our newly-commissioned piece, “-RADIANCE-,” did a Skype call with us. Charles Anthony Silvestri has developed a career over the past 20 years as a provider of “bespoke” lyrics. (I love that word! It means “custom made.” The only other context in which I’d heard it was that of an English suit, one tailored to the individual’s measurements.) What a wonderful experience for me to sit with some dozen or so other Chorale members who were able to come early and listen to this man talk about his work and ask him questions. At one point our conductor mentioned that Silvestri seemed to be in his studio. Not his writing studio, you understand: his painting studio. Not only does he have a career as a lyricist and poet, not only is he a full-time professor of Medieval and Renaissance history at the University of Kansas, but he also paints in the styles of the same periods about which he teaches. (And makes his own paint!) If any living person deserved the title of “Renaissance Man,” well . . .
Of course our main questions for him centered around his collaboration with Santiago Veros for our own piece. It was very much of an ongoing process as he described it, with the two of them communicating back and forth. Veros had given Silvestri the title, so the word “radiance” was a must-have in the lyrics. For a composer the experience of writing music to fit the words of a text that is already written, especially by someone who has died, is a far different experience from the ongoing process that can occur with a living author.
This is one of those posts in which I could go on and on and on. I could talk about the original novel Candide by the 18th-century French satirist Voltaire, or the character of Candide in the novel, or the musical in its many iterations overseen by Leonard Bernstein, from which our selection is taken. I’ll try to hit each of these areas just a little.
So, to answer my rather silly question in relation to the above: No. Candide is not candid, but Candide is. Little grammatical joke there.
Voltaire’s novel is not in the least candid; that is, it is not naïve, gullible, sincere, or innocent. We use the word today in a slightly different sense; if you say to someone, “I’m going to be candid with you,” you usually mean “I’m going to say something tactless to you.” But you can see how this idea derives from the original definition. If you’re very frank and open yourself you’ll tend to be that way with other people. The novel itself, however, is biting, bitter and sarcastic, full of truly awful events. Even for modern readers, steeped in horror movies and violent video games, it doesn’t make for pleasant reading. (I personally could barely get through the synopsis on Wikipedia.)
Ah, autumn! On the one hand it’s the start of crisp, invigorating fall weather and the new school year; on the other it’s the end of summer and the inevitable slide towards winter. I’ve always loved fall, but as a gardener I also mourn the end of the growing season, trying to comfort myself with the refrain, “Next year!”
Three pieces of film/stage music capture this two-sided aspect of autumn: “The Summer Knows” from Summer of ’42 (1971), “Les Feuilles Mortes”/”The Autumn Leaves” from the post-WWII French film Les Portes de la Nuit (The Gates of the Night), and “September Song,” originally written for the 1936 Broadway musical Knickerbocker Holiday and later used in the 1950 film September Affair.
Ecclesiastes 4:12 says, “A threefold cord is not quickly broken.” Certainly there are at least three cords, or strands, of friendship that have characterized the relationship of composer K. Lee Scott with the Cherry Creek Chorale and especially with one of its members, Ron Lester.
Ron has been a member of the chorale for over 15 years, first joining us because he was looking for variety and fun in the music being performed as well as a certain amount of flexibility in rehearsal attendance due to his work schedule. (I wonder what other chorales he looked at! Our rehearsal schedule is pretty demanding, to my mind at least.) He ended up serving on the board in various capacities and feeling such a part of the group that when he and his wife Ann started estate planning, he says, “We thought it would be a lot more fun to give a gift to the Chorale now and be a part of that gift.”
I’ve written about bluebirds before, when I asked why Uncle Remus had a bluebird on his shoulder in the song “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah,” and I revisited that image when I talked about “Over the Rainbow.” Now I want to re-revisit the topic in a short post about the short piece “The Blue Bird” by Charles V. Stanford with lyrics by Mary Coleridge. I probably can’t add anything to the musical analysis given below by a professional, so I’ll confine myself to some info on the author of the text and also about the composer.