12 October 2007

Wow!

The Collinsville Chorale gave an outstanding performance tonight - and my wife and father-in-law had solos and did great jobs! In fact, my wife has convinced me: I'm going to join the chorale for the Christmas concert, which this year will be offered at Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Collinsville. Sweet! I told Cindi today that I am personally starved for music. Playing for the Pastoral Conference reminded me of how much I miss it. And Christmas music is my all-time favorite, hands down, no contest. Can't wait to find out what we'll be singing!!!

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bet it won't be Grandma got run over by a reindeer!

Frankly I've been hankering for some Christmas music. I almost put some on the other day. I'm getting ready for a road trip tomorrow, perhaps it's time to dig some out and perform in my private concert hall - my minivan.

Linda

Dan @ Necessary Roughness said...

Bach's Christmas Oratorio rocks. I hope you get some of that.

Anonymous said...

boy do I wish Christmas break let out earlier...the 21st is just maddening! I don't get to do ANYTHING fun...advent services...and desserts...Christmas shopping WHILE I'm HOME...MELHS Christmas concert...the collinsville chorale's Christmas concert...and while I'm venting...because spring break butts up next to easter I don't get to go to any Lenten services at home either...and the ones here are just not as good!

Past Elder said...

My fave -- Vince Guaraldi's soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas, particularly the use of O Tannenbaum.

My two fave carols: Adeste Fidelis and O komm ihre Kinder, which is not to say O Come All Ye Faithful and O Come Little Children.

Speaking of the LSB, I think Silent Night is given in German as well. Maybe that will help the practice of singing the original.

My fondest Christmas memory, thought bittersweet, was as a young adult home for Christmas, after enduring a novus ordo Midnight Mass, in quintessential Vatican II style held at 1030p for "pastoral reasons", then enduring the NBC Midnight Mass from St Peter's shown at midnight, knowing one who knew only the former could not participate in the latter, tuning in to Minnesota Public Radio for the end of Midnight Mass from the Abbey, where a lot of this mess was championed, but which nonetheless always sang Stille Nacht as the last Communion hymn, absolutely floating over the silent snowlit darkness, colder than a billy goat's mother-in-law.

OK, my real fondest Christmas memory isn't that, isn't bittersweet and has nothing to do with music. It's the eggs, sausage and stollen for breakfast in the morning! Now THAT's the froeliche in Weinachten! God bless me and I'm not even German!

Dan @ Necessary Roughness said...

LSB 363 does have Silent Night in German, with two wordings of the first verse. Could anyone translate? :)

1. Stille Nacht, heilege Nacht!
Alles schläft einsam wacht
Nur das traute, hochheilege Paar.
Holder Knabe im lockigen Haar,
Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh,
Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh.

or....

1. Stille Nacht, heilege Nacht!
Alles schläft einsam wacht
Nur das heilege Elternpaar,
Das im Stalle zu Bethlehem war.
Bei dem himmlischen Kind.
Bei dem himmlischen Kind.

I'm trying to see if I could sing this solo or in a quartet for our congregation. It would be quite nice.

William Weedon said...

Past Elder,

Danke. Nun habe ich HUNGER! ;)

Dan,

Silent night, holy night
all sleep, the only ones awake
the pious, high-holy pair.
Beautiful child with curly hair,
Sleep in heavenly peace...

or

Silent night, holy night,
all sleep, the only ones awake
are the holy parental pair,
That were in the stable at Bethlehem,
By the heavenly child, by the heavenly child.

The first is the original. The second was the form of Stille Nacht that many of Synod's parishes used to sing from the little book Liederperlen. I'm not sure where that particular translation arose or why, but it has persisted here at St. Paul's as THE way to sing Stille Nacht.

William Weedon said...

About the Christmas Oratorio, it MORE than rocks! That opening Bum-bu-bu-bu-bu-bum-bum. You know what I mean. I love it.

"Zion resounding with gay jubilation, joy to welcome our promised salvation, fixed and unchanging through infinite year - through INFINITE years!"

I remember well singing it with the mass choir at the Christmas concert my first year at Bronxville - what a joy! And when you performed it at Village Lutheran Church from the chancel you were looking across to the side altar which, if my memory is not failing me, the Blessed Virgin and the Child stood above.

William Weedon said...

LEW,

It still doesn't seem right at all not having you home for any of those. But I was thinking we needed to do a Weedon-DeVries sing thing for Christmas time. Let's find something that would be great for pre-service on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day!

Past Elder said...

On the hunger -- then let me add what followed, a real, true Weinachtsganz!

To this day I do the eggs, sausage and stollen thing with the boys. But the Christmas goose -- one year I got Nancy to agree to do one (and SHE was German in part and LCMS in background, not me!) and it did in our oven, requiring a trip to Nebraska Furniture Mart for a replacement! So now I do turkey like everybody else who doean't do ham.

My greatest fear is that if a Christmas goose retires into history, so will one of the best metaphors in "Anglo-Saxon" English, let the reader understand!

I think the LSB also gives Silent Night in Spanish too. Much as I love Spanish, and almost started blogging under my Spanish honorific, El Teraco, rather than Past Elder, Silent Night in Spanish doesn't do it for me. German or bust! There is a great little Christmas song in Spanish that has never made it into other languages, Arbolito Arbolito, Little Tree, Little Tree. I remember singing it into my older son's ear his first Christmas, which turned out to be Nancy's last.

Christmas Eve has also taken on a new meaning for me in recent years. It was the Christmas Eve service at 11p in what is now our parish. It was the first time we had ever been there, and being WELS and not supposed to be there, I was in part nervous and in part maybe expecting a Lutheran version of Midnight Mass as I had known it.

Instead, it was the Luke Christmas account, read in sections, each followed by a related skit written by the youth group, then a related hymn, the whole thing concluding with candlelight Silent Night.

While not in the form I expected, it was exactly the message I hoped for, and that is what counts in the end, and this Common Service or die rascal (as Father Hollywood termed me!) of a convert finds the 11p Christmas Eve Youth Group Service the best part of Christmas now. A little secret.

Doorman-Priest said...

You could do a lot worse than Handel's Messiah which is a great Christmas tradition here in the U.K.

It is also appropriate for Easter and the Leeds Philharmonic performed it with the Gyor Symphony orchestra in Bratislava, Vienna (Stephandom) and Budapest (Liszt Acadamy of Music) this Easter.

I'll send you a copy when we finaly get it from Hungary.

I hope you are in good voice.

D.P.

William Weedon said...

Doorman,

We thrive on Messiah over here too. Some places even offer "sing along" Messiah where the audience joins in the choruses. :)

BUT there is no comparison - in my book - between Messiah and the Christmas Oratorio. Bach wins, hands down!

Doorman-Priest said...

Its a point of view, I suppose.

D.P.

Lutheran Lucciola said...

Oh, here's your review, sorry I missed it. I'm glad it was a success! Local arts are important.

Yes, Handel's Messiah is big in my circles, too. The sing-a-long's can be pretty interesting!