It’s that time of year again when we are inundated with those all too familiar Christmas songs that we once loved and now loathe. It is simply too much to have canned Christmas music coming at us everywhere we go. How about some peace and quiet? And wasn’t that the original message of Christmas i.e. Peace on Earth?
These two new CDs, one from Elora, Ontario and the other from Austin, Texas, have done a great deal to restore my enjoyment of the season. Perhaps they can do the same for you.
Toronto music-lovers don’t have to be told about the wonderful work that Noel Edison has been doing with choral groups. He created the beloved Elora Festival and the professional choir that is its centerpiece. And he chose this fine ensemble to be the core of his much larger Toronto Mendelssohn Choir.
The Elora Festival Singers have long since become a fixture on the Naxos label, with entire albums devoted to the music of Healey Willan, Arvo Pärt and Morten Lauridsen. Not to mention other compilation CDs celebrating the music of dozens of other composers.
What is striking about their new Christmas album is the originality of the arrangements. We have familiar carols such as “O Holy Night,” “Away in a Manger” and “The First Nowell” but the versions recorded here are fresh and often surprising in their dynamics and harmonies. This is really a Christmas album for connoisseurs, for people not content to be surrounded by the old familiar sounds of Christmas. Rather, this CD is for people who look to Christmas as a time of renewal, and that goes for the music too. If we are going to listen to all the old, familiar songs let’s give them a new coat of paint. Or, in musical terms let’s really get inside the music and see how it can be made to live again.
As I listened to this CD – I must confess I played it first on my car stereo – I was taken by the wonder of it all. And hey, that’s the title of the album: “The Wonder of Christmas.” And after every song I had to ask my wife to tell me who did the arrangement. I needed to know what remarkable musician made this music new again. Fortunately, the liner notes by Graham Wade provide exactly what is needed to get the most out of this listening experience. We get not only names of arrangers but mini-bios too and fascinating background information.
Among the highlights is a bouncy, Poulencian version of the “Holly and the Ivy” arranged in 2011 by Stuart Thompson. The organ accompaniment is delicious. Then there is Paul Halley’s arrangement of “What Child is This” with unusual and haunting harmonies, especially on the last chord. I also liked Bob Chilcott’s version of “Away in a Manger” with Sheila Dietrich as the soprano soloist.
This is refined singing by any standard, perhaps too refined for some listeners. And some may be put off by Noel Edison’s very British approach to choral sound. Do we really want our women to sound like boy sopranos? But if you enjoy sitting by a roaring fire with a glass of brandy in your hand on a cold winter’s night, this is the music for you. Believe me, it will enhance and enrich your moments of quiet introspection.
For many years now Craig Hella Johnson and his chamber choir Conspirare have been impressing folks in Texas and beyond with their inspired music-making. The choir is virtually the same size as the Elora Festival Singers; Conspirare has 24 singers and Elora 23. Conspirare has made nine commercial recordings, eight of them on the Harmonia Mundi label. Four of them have received Grammy nominations.
One of Conspirare’s most-anticipated concerts every year is the Christmas concert. Johnson has a gift for training singers but also for programming. He programs philosophically and spiritually, which is to say that he juxtaposes songs in terms of their messages and their ideas. Given the range of Johnson’s interest this makes for some very eclectic programming.
But while most Christmas concerts are almost by definition, Christian celebrations, Johnson takes great care not to impose one man’s faith on others. His desire to communicate through words and music is ecumenical; it is inclusive. Christmas is a Christian event but for Johnson and Conspirare it is also a time for people to come together to celebrate the good things they share and to express hope for the future.
The special guest last year (2013) was the Austin-based and hugely successful blues singer Ruthie Foster. She joined the choir for several carols and sang several songs she had composed herself. The program also included music by Britten and Sweelinck, and traditional South African songs. Then there were popular songs by Jimmy Van Heusen and Burton Lane. And for a show-stopping finale, a hypnotic slow version of “I Could Have Danced All Night” from My Fair Lady.
This version of the song made famous by Julie Andrews has become a tradition at Conspirare’s Christmas concerts. Why? Because it is beautiful and touching and because of its Broadway origin, inclusive. That word again. But words and music can be inclusive without being superficial. Craig Hella Johnson on the creation of this arrangement:
Around the time I first arranged this setting of “I Could Have Danced All Night”
I was reading poetry of T.S. Eliot. It is meant to evoke what Eliot captures in these
lines from the Four Quartets: “At the still point of the turning world. Neither
flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is.”
Get the fire going and pour the brandy for Conspirare Christmas 2013 too. Both CDs would make wonderful Christmas gifts. Just make sure you keep one of each for yourself.
Paul E. Robinson
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