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A Baroque Christmas
Lhuthiel:
Hi David, what a great thread! :D
I have always liked classical Christmas (related) concerts and songs in particular, so I think it’s nice to have all these classical Christmas songs together in one place like this.
Btw, I really liked the “Dance of the Blessed Spirits” played by the flute orchestra, too.
The flute is one of my favourite instruments (after the cello, of course ;)). I usually don’t like several flutes playing together, because it sounds never quite even or clean, but they did a very good job there. :)
The following two are “Adventslieder” (Advent songs). They are sung during Advent time and while most people just refer to them as Christmas songs, there are differences in topics which is why the church still knows this distinction between Christmas and Advent songs.
(I’m not sure if that was interesting to anyone, I only know this because I attended a Catholic school. :-\)
I’m sorry that these are all in German, but I’m not familiar with English Christmas songs (and the ones that I know are most likely not Baroque or Classical).
The tunes are the same, after all. :)
The first one is called “Es kommt ein Schiff, geladen”. I can’t give a literal translation of the title, because it’s a somewhat “poetic title” (by that I mean it’s not grammatically correct). Roughly translated the first two lines mean something like “There comes a ship, fully laden.”
I hope you don’t mind that I won’t say more about the lyrics, they are very long and complicated to translate and personally I think there is not that much of an actual message to the song.
It’s very early Baroque, from about 1626 and the tune is from 1608, according to Wikipedia.
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofGU640JeUw[/youtube]
Lhuthiel:
The second is “Tochter Zion, freue dich”. The tune is by Handel (1747), the lyrics from about 1820/1826 (Wikipedia again).
I feel like I'm really missing something about this one, like there's something I should absolutely mention, but I don't know what it is that I'm missing. Any thoughts?
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3y9u-dGDOg[/youtube]
Lhuthiel:
Then there’s "Ich steh’ an deiner Krippen hier" (1736) by J.S. Bach. It’s part of the 6th cantata of the "Weihnachtsoratorium", but it’s also sung as a regular (alone standing) Christmas song here.
The lyrics are by Paul Gerhardt (1653), who is one of the most important German chant writers (I hope my dictionary is right and a chant is actually a "church song"?).
I posted that one in the Christmas songs thread already and I’m still not happy with the vibrato in this version, but the only other one I found on youtube is very, very slow, so here it is anyways:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBWFbTXYoBk (embedding is disabled)
Lhuthiel:
And I just discovered "Once in Royal David’s City". I didn’t know this song (as I said I’m quite ignorant about English Christmas songs). Wikipedia says it’s from the late 1840ies, that’s not really Classical anymore, I know.
I hope it’s okay to post it anyway (it’s only about 30 years to young to be Classical after all ;)).
I was so impressed by the little boy who sings the solo parts. I mean, I don’t think I would have been able to get out a single note in front of so many people at his age.
[youtube=425,350]http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=plNCeQJmswE[/youtube]
Front-Ranger:
--- Quote from: David on December 09, 2007, 02:30:55 am ---Hi Meryl! You're welcome! I'll try to find some more music to post!
I play violin, cello and piano. I also play a little guitar and banjo. I've played the violin, cello and piano since I was a youngster. The cello is my favorite instrument I think. :)
--- End quote ---
Wow, isn't it great to learn this about one of our favourite people? How did we not know this before? David I would like to introduce you to LauraGigs, an excellent fiddler as well as our Ennis on the Performance Thread!!
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