Ella Hansen lights a Christmas candle and imagines the newborn Christ child.
When pieties are said, and lamps go dim,
That only moon and star touch midnight snows,
Beneath the shelter of a quiet hymn,
The first spark flickers, and a candle glows.
Did He whose strength kindled the fires of sun
See with such wide eyes candle-flame begun?
John R. Ahern writes,
I’m having trouble with words that start with B. Help wanted. In the meanwhile….
If you haven’t noticed something about me, I’m one of those nuts who considers the whole year (Church or otherwise) as a preparation for Christmas, and starts planning next year’s Christmas Eve service after we’ve opened presents. Despite all the theological reasons to view Easter as higher and more heraldic (which I’m sure it is), I still love Christmas far more.
One of the things about Christmas I love so much is the music. 24/7/31/12, if you will, I’m finding new carols, new anthems, new motets, new organ pieces, etc. that are quite obscure, forgotten, esoteric, and all that. Just the type of stuff I love.
And, occasionally, I like to try my hand at writing one myself. Here I’m being a lot less original, as I’ve decided to take Greensleeves (I know, the height of clichéd Christmas caroling), and take a shot at some original harmonization for it.
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I’ve chosen the words for it I found in the Oxford Book of Carols that Martin Shaw and Percy Dearmer must have collaborated on. They’re apparently from 1642, and it would make this a New Years’ Carol rather than strictly a Christmas one.
As for my harmonizations, they’re largely inspired by four of the greatest hymnodists, carol experts, orchestrators, or English polyphonists that have ever lived – Ralph Vaughn Williams, Martin Shaw, Gustav Holst, and William Walton. Herbert Howells flew in there too. All from the 20th century, you’ll notice, so these aren’t going to be your Vanilla Ice-Cream carols, and I’d like to think that my Greensleeves harmonies aren’t either. Though inspired by them, I fall short of their glory. I have parallel fifths here and there I could sort out, but I like them better the way they are.
My brother pointed out that my harmonies seem rather strange around measure 18. It’s actually a chord I found in Bach’s St. Anne’s Prelude for Organ, first played as an F9 chord in that inversion. I simply transposed it, found a place for it harmonically speaking (it’s vaguely connected as a resolution to the C7 before it), and slipped it in. I’m not sure it makes sense, but it was worth a try.
