What’s a herald angel? And other questions answered about a confusing Christmas carol.

November 13, 2023November 10, 2023 by debisimons

Let me start out with the correct way to punctuate the title; it should be “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” So the title actually comprises two sentences. “Hark!” is a one-sentence command meaning “Listen!” or “Pay attention!” (The same thing is going on grammatically in “Hark! I Hear the Harps Eternal,” which is also not typically punctuated properly.) And to whom should we pay attention? Why, the “herald angels,” of course. (Let’s spare everyone the joke about the angel’s name being “Harold,” okay?) A ”herald” is a messenger who sometimes blows a trumpet to get everyone’s attention before an announcement. The angels in the Christmas story don’t blow trumpets; they don’t even sing. They simply proclaim. So the illustration that I chose for this post is not correct biblically, but it does agree with the carol.

Is “Joy to the World” a Christmas song?

November 13, 2023October 29, 2023 by debisimons

Hey, isn’t that a pretty dumb question? “Joy to the World” is one of our most traditional of Christmas carols. At least, that’s what most of us would say. But a quick look at the words reveals no mention of mangers, angels, shepherds, stars, or Christ as a baby. So what’s the song really about? I was intrigued to see the name “Isaac Watts” as the author of the lyrics. He’s known as the author of many famous hymns, including “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” and “Oh God, Our Help in Ages Past.” So it wouldn’t be surprising for him to have written about Christmas.

Dan Forrest Breathes Life into “the breath of life”

January 25, 2024January 26, 2023 by debisimons

the breath of life

The contemporary choral composer Dan Forrest had no way of knowing when he was contacted by the professional choir Bel Canto for a commission that he would write something audiences would associate with the COVID pandemic and the death of George Floyd. Since the premier took place in October 2019, though, the association was inevitable. The piece poignantly represents the truth that “There’s beauty and joy and wonder in every breath we take.”

LUX: The Dawn from on High

August 9, 2022May 4, 2022 by debisimons

Introduction to the work and its composer Dan Forrest

Dan Forrest published his first choral piece, an arrangement of the hymn “Sun of My Soul,” in 2001. He was 23 years old and working on a degree in piano performance at the time. Beckenhorst Press, a major sacred music publisher, accepted the work after several others had rejected it, little knowing that Forrest would end up as an assistant editor for the organization and as the primary accompanist for their demo recordings. While Forrest had done some arranging and composing in his high school and college years, he concentrated on the piano until, as he says, “Eventually I just got kind of tired of the piano, where you press a note and it dies.” (See the J. W. Pepper video below for the full interview.) He became more and more interested in vocal music, eventually earning his doctorate in composition. He’s also studied with a number of prominent American choral composers, among them Alice Parker, whom Forrest considers to be a foremost influence. He’s now much in demand as a composer, arranger, conductor, speaker and clinician and has left full-time teaching so that he can devote more time to his own writing.

Was the Singing of the Angels on Christmas Night “Soft,” “Sweet,” or “Faint”?

October 27, 2022November 30, 2021 by debisimons

Image by falco from Pixabay. Kind of a cool contemporary stained-glass depiction of the angels and shepherds.

Let me start out by questioning the very supposition in the above title: did the angels in the Christmas story actually do any singing at all?

Here’s the relevant text from the translation I know best, the King James Version:

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, . . . And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. (Luke 2:9-10, 13-14)

How Has the Jewish Bible book of Ecclesiastes Been Used in Musical Settings?

January 21, 2021 by debisimons

I’ve had the privilege of singing a piece titled “Beautiful In His Time” by the American composer/arranger Dan Forrest, which uses a passage from the book of Ecclesiastes chapter 3 in the Jewish Bible. Forrest is by no means the first to set verses from this chapter to music, though; there’s a long history of doing that, going all the way back to Brahms. Before I get to an overview of that history, though, I’d like to comment a bit on the book as a whole, since Ecclesiastes is fascinating in and of itself, considered to be part of the “wisdom” section of the Old Testament along with Job, Psalms, Proverbs, and Song of Solomon. Yet it seems to have a very different message from any other book of the Bible, for it can come across as cynical and fatalistic, especially in the earlier chapters. Most Bible scholars believe that it was written by Solomon, king of Israel after David, who would certainly fit the description of “teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem” given in the first verse. But why would Solomon, whom the Bible says had the greatest wisdom of all mankind, say in verse 2, “It is useless, useless . . . life is useless, all useless”? We are given at least a partial answer at the end of chapter 1: “The wiser you are, the more worries you have; the more you know, the more it hurts.” (Good News Translation)

Was There Really Any Winter’s Snow at the Time of the Nativity in Bethlehem?

April 18, 2022December 2, 2019 by debisimons

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.

“Oread Farewell” and Its Many Meanings

December 15, 2020May 7, 2018 by debisimons

Overlooking Lawerence and the Kansas River. (Boston Public Library) (cropped).jpg — Old North College, the first building on the University of Kansas campus, at the northeast promontory of Mount Oread, looking north over Lawrence and the Kansas River, ca. 1867. Image accessed via Wikipedia.

One of the great privileges of performing classical music is that you get to delve into pieces written hundreds of years ago and others written within this century. If you’re fortunate you get to read or watch interviews with the composers and lyricists of modern music. Such is the case with the modern choral composer Dan Forrest, whose music my own choir has performed multiple times. We are also familiar with the work of poet/lyricist Anthony Silvestri, who provided the text. “Oread” was featured in our May 2018 concert as the closing piece, performed in the round.

So the first question is, “What’s an oread? And why is Forrest saying good-bye to whatever it is?” First things first. “Oread” is a term from Greek mythology meaning a mountain nymph. (Echo was one such, who was a consort of Zeus and was doomed by Hera, Zeus’s wife, to speak only the last words that had been spoken to her. Thus, when Echo fell in love with Narcissus, she couldn’t tell him how she felt and was forced to watch him falling in love with his own reflection in a pool.) So “oread” would be a suitable name for a mountain itself.

Should Dan Forrest’s Three Nocturnes Inspire Us to Look Up at the Stars?

February 24, 2022September 2, 2017 by debisimons

Um, I guess so. I’m going to try, anyway.

I’ve had the great privilege of singing this work with my own choir, the Cherry Creek Chorale. We loved it! (So did the audience.) All three parts of the Nocturnes have lyrics from American poems, and I’m going to take a stab at clarifying them. As I’ve said this before, though, taking a poem apart to pry out the meaning is a little bit like explaining a joke: when you’re all done, you’ve destroyed the original. Still, there are some intriguing lines in all three selections that repay analysis. If you’d rather leave the mystery intact, you can skip the following.