Global Christmas I

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For a long time, Susan and others have been after me to record a Christmas album. I actually did record two Christmas songs last year (2006), but two songs do not an album make. Long about September of this year Susan pulled rank, and I got to work. I didn’t get as many songs done as I wanted to but I figure I can always do some more and add them to the collection for next year. In any event, at this point this is the Christmas album.

Some of you may notice that several of these songs are not sung in English. You’d be right. Someone has already asked if I’m not just showing off because I can make those particular noises, and there’s some truth to that. But there are a couple of other reasons these songs were selected and recorded. First, I’ve always been interested in other languages and have actively studied four of them with varying degrees of success. Second, one of the things that has long fascinated me about Christmas is that it is celebrated in so many different places by so many different cultures with so many different traditions in so many different ways.

So think of this as a sort of global musical tour of this happy season. And remember, if some of the songs are unfamiliar or strange to you they are very familiar and not at all strange to other wonderful folks on our shared planet.

1. Gaudete [medieval Europe]—Sung in Latin, the title of the song, Gaudete, means “rejoice.” The song dates from the 16thcentury and was probably composed in reference to Gaudete Sunday, the third Sunday in Advent. It was first published in a collection of Finnish/Swedish sacred songs in 1582. The refrain translates: “Rejoice, rejoice! Christ is born of the Virgin Mary. Rejoice!”

2. Riu Chiu [Spain]—Also from the 16th century, this is an example of a type of Spanish song called villancico, a song with a refrain that follows two stanzas. The title, Riu Chiu, supposedly mimics the sound of a nightingale. The kick line, “Dios guardó el lobo de nuestra cordera” translates: “God kept the wolf from our lamb,” not a bad thing to celebrate if you were a 16th-century Spanish shepherd. I first learned this song as part of my high school Spanish instruction and I dedicate it with great affection to Howard Thain and Cid Hostetler, two of the finest teachers, Spanish or otherwise, that ever lived.

3. Es ist ein Ros’ entsprungen [Germany]—Most of us know this song as “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming.” My good friend and fellow musician Andy Livingston (no, not all of my friends are named Livingston), who teaches German at Lake Park High School in Roselle, Illinois, joins me in singing this beautiful song. I intended to have an English version on this album, but that will have to wait till next year—like the Cubs.

4. Boar’s Head Carol [England]—This song probably dates from the 15th century and describes an old Anglo-Norse tradition of serving a boar’s head at the Yuletide feast. Students at The Queen’s College at Oxford Universitystill sing this song every year as they march in a procession following a boar’s head—cooked of course—as it is carried into a banquet hall. The Latin refrain “Caput apri defero/Reddens laudes Domino” translates: “The boar’s head I offer/Giving praises to the Lord.”

5. Cherry Tree Carol [England]—There have been lots of versions of this song, and some form of it goes back to the 15th century. It is a ballad, unusual for a Christmas song, that relates an apocryphal story from the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew. Many English, Scottish, and Irish musicians have performed it with many variations. I was struck by how Appalachian and “bluegrass” the melody is, so that’s how Susan and I performed it.

6.  Taladh Chriosda (Christ Child Lullaby)[Isle of Skye]—Off the northwest coast of Scotland lies the Isle of Skye, one of the most beautiful places on this earth. It was  the last bit of Scotland Bonnie Prince Charlie saw as he escaped the aftermath of the failed Jacobite uprising of 1745. It is the home of Clan MacLeod and of the Talisker distillery. It is also where this gorgeous song came into being. I sing the last two verses—hopefully—in Scots Gaelic, a language I do not speak but, as a Scot, the language I consider to be my Hebrew, Latin, or Sanskrit.

7. A Soalin’ [England, sort of]—Noel Stookey, “Paul” of Peter, Paul and Mary, wrote this song sitting on the floor of a friend’s apartment in Chicago. It started out as a guitar finger exercise. It harkens back to the old English Christmas tradition of wassailing, when groups of people go door-to-door singing Christmas carols until paid to go away, usually with a glass of “wassail,” a hot spiced punch

8.  Mary’s Boy Child [Caribbean]—Thank the calypso craze of the late ‘50s and early ‘60s for this song. None other than Harry Belafonte wrote it. It was on my family’s favorite Christmas album when I was a kid, a record I still play while opening presents every year. I began performing it when I was in high school and if I hadn’t included it on this album I would be in deep trouble with my mother. 

9. I Wonder as I Wander [Appalachia]—One of the few home grown American Christmas carols that has endured. My North Carolinabackground and my mother’s upbringing in the mountains of West Virginia compelled me to do it.

10. Hark the Herald Angels Sing [England]—The only really familiar carol on the album. Last Christmas my wonderful niece, Anna Tschetter, was visiting her mother, Susan’s sister Peggy, who had just moved to our area. Anna was studying piano at Gordon Collegenear Boston, and I wanted very much to get her into the studio and to do a song with her. It turns out that we share Charles Wesley as our favorite hymn writer. It also turns out that Felix Mendelssohn is Anna’s favorite composer. Wesley wrote the lyrics, and Mendelssohn wrote the music to this song. That pretty much made it a no-brainer. Thank you Anna.

11.  The Christmas Song [U.S.A.]—Mel Torme is one of the great American musicians. Folks usually think of him as just a singer, but he was also a really good jazz song composer.  He and Bob Wells wrote this song in 40 minutes in 1944, on a blistering summer day in an effort to “stay cool by thinking cool.” According to BMI, it’s the most-performed Christmas song ever.