Celebrating The American Composer, Philip Glass, On His Birthday

 

Philip Glass                           Luis Alvarez Roure, U.S., 2016

Philip Glass is the most well-known minimalist composer and master of what he calls music of repetitive structure in our time. He was born into a musical family in  Baltimore and lived in an apartment above his father's record store. In that environment he developed a love of music, particularly modern classical music, by listening to promotional recordings and records that had been returned to the store. At eight he was studying music at the Peabody Conservatory of Music. At fifteen he continued his musical training and studied mathematics and philosophy at the University of Chicago. 

Listeners cannot help but "count" in one way or another throughout all of his compositions. And his work is surely a Calculus in our own time, retaining its minimalist core wrapped in a stylistic evolution. He has composed operas, symphonies, concertos, string quartets, chamber pieces, and film scores. Three of his scores received Academy Award nominations.

He wrote his first score for the film, Koyaaniqatsi (1982), a mesmerizing audiovisual feast by Godfrey Reggio and Ron Fricke examining the interface of people, technology, and nature. Glass's score for this film has become a signature piece, one that he and his ensemble have performed around the world for almost four decades. Glass has also composed for many popular films including Candyman (1992), The Hours (2002), and the memorable satire, The Truman Show (1998).

Listening to Glass is often more an experience where one can get be the music as a participant rather than merely listen. Even at its simplest, his work has complexities in tone, harmony, tempo and orchestration. For one thing, Glass counts. He plays by the numbers, practicing his musical arithmetic adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, and even solving some algebraic formulas here and there. In the end music to Glass seems like the mathematics he studied. Fortunately for our culture, popular as well as haute, he became an extraordinary, prolific, and popular composer whose significant international influences in the music world continue to this very day which happens to be his 87th birthday.

Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
Collection of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.

Text:
philipglass.com
wikipendia.org

Frederick Delius: Saturation In Sound

 

Delius in 1907

The English composer, Frederick Delius, was born on this day in Yorkshire in 1862. At 24, he lived the classic story of breaking away from the family business - wool, no less - to pursue a love for the arts, in this case, music. The break was interesting for it took him first to Solano Grove and an orange plantation on the banks of the St. Johns River south of Jacksonville, Florida. Later, he would teach music in Danville, Virginia, before returning to Europe for formal education in Germany. He took the sounds of American culture with him. In 1888, he settled in Paris, later married the painter, Jelka Rosen - she painted the portrait below - and devoted his life to composition. In his last sixteen years he was tortured by the pain of a slow death from syphilis contracted during his early years in Paris. In the four years before his death in 1934, he was blind and essentially paralyzed from the neck down. He composed and completed some of his most significant work during this period, all of it reaching paper through the notations of his loyal amanuensis, Eric Fenby.

Delius patterned much of his music after that of his friend and fellow composer, Edvard Grieg, but tempered it with English impressionism, a love of naturalism, and his American experience, particularly his immersion in African American cultural themes while working on his father's grapefruit plantation. The result was a unique and demanding music for performer and listener alike and one that almost demands an acquired appreciation. From his death until the 1970's many in the classical music industry thought his compositions were "too sweet" and trapped in immature cliches. Today, his popularity continues to grow but I believe he remains an underappreciated figure in 20th century music.

Portrait of Delius by his wife, Jelka Rosen, Grez-sur-Loing, France, 1912

I first encountered Delius's music in a BBC program in 1968. The unique lyric quality of his compositions was like a magnet and there was no escape from the compelling soundscapes with such rich, complex imagery and depth. It was easy to fall under the Delius spell as a student of physical and historical geography. The appreciation increased when I began a life-long career focused on the nation's most significant and often most beautiful places.

Years ago, I had the opportunity to sit alone on a dock watching the evening move over the St. Johns River landscape not far from Solano Grove. Delius's music was in my head and all the beauty of "Old Florida" was in my heart. A century earlier he had likely walked the river's edge at that very place, watched the same sun glistening on the water, heard the worker's songs blending with those of insects and the wind rustling the reeds and nearby palmettos.

Over his lifetime he would be identified with the English school of music, but would put much of that Florida experience into his work. In fact, he has a significant place in American music history having been the first classical composer to use musical themes of black Americans in the South. Those themes appear in several of his composition more than forty years before George Gershwin and Porgy and Bess. 

This post opened with Song of Summer, written in 1930 when Delius was blind and paralyzed. To conclude, here are two earlier compositions. The first is from the Florida Suite, written in 1888 when he was twenty years old. Music historians agree that this piece represents the first use of black American folk idioms in classical form by a European composer. He also composed the first black opera, Koanga. (George Gershwin is most often erroneously credited with this accomplishment, but his opera, Porgy and Bess, premiered fifty years later.

 

The second work,  In A Summer Garden, was composed in 1908. This and many other Delius works would go on to influence a number of popular music composers well into the 20th century. Perhaps the most significant of them was the iconic composer, pianist, and bandleader, Duke Ellington, whose composed - most likely with his arranger, Billy Strayhorn - In a Blue Summer Garden as a tribute. 

Over forty years have passed since I watched that sunset near Solano Grove. That's a long time to explore and mature in one man's music. It remains a most satisfactory experience filled with complex brushstrokes of sound so different, immersive, and timeless.

Music is a cry of the soul. It is addressed and should appeal instantly to the soul of the listener. It is a revelation, a thing to be reverenced.

                                                                          Frederick Delius

Sources

Photos and Illustrations:

Delius photograph, Monographein Moderner Musiker, Leipzig, Germany: C.F. Kahnt Nachfolger, 1907. Public domain in the United States
Portrait of Frederick Delius by his wife, Jelka Rosen.

Text:
title, from comments by Delius biographer, Christopher Palmer, 1976

The Delius Society
Before the Champions: Frederick Delius' Florida Suite for Orchestra, Mary E. Greene., M.A. Thesis, University of Miami, 2011
Radio Swiss Classic, Frederick Delius
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Frederick Delius

Stephane Grappelli: Le Son De E'legeance

Stephane Grappelli, the unsurpassed master of the jazz violin, entertained audiences almost to the very day he died in 1997 at the age of 89. There was happiness and optimism in virtually every note of his music, even when those notes brought nostalgia and its touch of sadness to mind. No question he loved what he did and it flowed straight to his listeners. I doubt his songs ever came to an end without a sea of smiles in the audience.

Here is Grappelli in late 1995 performing with Bucky Pizzarelli on guitar, John Burr on bass, and guest guitarist, John Pizzarelli, at the famed Blue Note Jazz Club in New York.

Grappelli was born on January 26, 1908, in Paris, grew up poor and made a marginal living as a self-taught street violinist and silent film accompanist on the piano. In 1934 he met a gypsy guitarist named Django Reinhard - we commemorated his birthday a few days ago - and with him formed the Quintette du Hot Club de France, an ensemble that would make history in the world of jazz and popular music.

Grappelli made his American debut in 1960, long after the Hot Club dissolved, and enjoyed a second career playing to admiring fans around the world for the next 35 years. I find it interesting that Grappelli was almost forgotten in the U.S. until he began touring in the 1970s when he was well into his 60s. One would think that a jazz virtuoso would be well known in the country that birthed the genre. How thankful we should be that he was "rediscovered" here and lived to entertain us for so many years.

Here is one example of that entertainment, a stunning performance of Nuages, a jazz standard composed by Django Reinhardt. The recording features Grappelli with Oscar Peterson on piano, Joe Pass on guitar, and Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen on bass.

 Simply stunning.

To conclude, here is the Quintette du Hot Club de France in their classic performance of Minor Swing, composed by Reinhardt and Grappell in the mid-1930's:

Yes, it's another jazz standard, the sound of elegance, and still going strong after eighty years.

Burns Night 2025

Today Scottish organizations and communities around the world are celebrating Burns Day, the 264th anniversary of the birth of Robert (Rabbie) Burns (1759-1796), the Bard of Scotland. Soon after the light fades, attention turns to Burns Night, a supper commemorating his life and work. In 2016 the International Business Times UK edition said this about him:

Burns is one of Scotland's most important literary figures, best known for his famous – and often humorous – songs and poetry. His most recognised works include Auld Lang Syne, which is often sung at Hogmanay on New Year's Eve, and Scots Wha Hae, which has become an unofficial Scottish national anthem.

Burns, commonly known as Rabbie, was born to a poor family in Alloway, Ayr, on 25 January 1759 and began his working life on the family farm. His father hired a local teacher to tutor Burns, who showed signs of having a natural talent for writing from a young age.

As Burns grew older, his passion for Scotland and his contemporary vision played important roles in inspiring the founders of socialism and liberalism. His first work, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect – later known as the Kilmarnock Edition – was published in 1786.He also wrote in English and is regarded as a pioneer of the Romantic movement. Burns' poetry drew on references to classical, biblical and English literature, as well as the Scottish Makar tradition – a term from Scottish literature for a poet or bard.

Burns died in Dumfries at the age of 37. Inspired by Scottish history and culture, as well as Scotland's countryside, Burns remains one of the most celebrated figures in the country's history – as demonstrated by the annual Burns Night celebrations.

Here are interpretations of three of Burns's best known poems. The first two are by the late, great Scottish folk singer and educator, Jean Redpath:

There's nought but care on ev'ry han',

In every hour that passes, O

What signifies the life o' man,

An' 'twere na for the lasses, O.

Green grow the rashes, O

Green grow the rashes, O

The sweetest hours that e'er I spend,

Are spent among the lasses, O

The warl'y race may riches chase,

An' riches still may fly them, O

An' tho' at last they catch them fast,

Their hearts can ne'er enjoy them, O.

Green grow the rashes, O

Green grow the rashes, O

The sweetest hours that e'er I spend,

Are spent among the lasses, O

But gie me a cannie hour at e'en,

My arms about my dearie, O,

An' warl'y cares an' war'ly men

May a' gae tapsalteerie, O!

Green grow the rashes, O

Green grow the rashes, O

The sweetest hours that e'er I spend,

Are spent among the lasses, O

For you sae douce, ye sneer at this

Ye're nought but senseless asses, O

The wisest man the warl' e'er saw,

He dearly lov'd the lasses, O.

Green grow the rashes, O

Green grow the rashes, O

The sweetest hours that e'er I spend,

Are spent among the lasses, O

Auld Nature swears, the lovely dears

Her noblest work she classes, O

Her prentice han' she try'd on man,

An' then she made the lasses, O.

Green grow the rashes, O

Green grow the rashes, O

The sweetest hours that e'er I spend,

Are spent among the lasses, O

Cauld is the e'enin blast,

O' Boreus o'er the pool,

An' dawin' it is dreary,

When birks are bare at Yule.

Cauld blaws the e'enin blast,

When bitter bites the frost,

And, in the mirk and dreary drift,

The hills and glens are lost.

Ne'er sae murky blew the night,

That drifted o'er the hill,

But bonie Peg-a-Ramsay

Gat grist in her mill.

Every Burns Night ends with the singing of Auld Lang Syne, a poem written by Burns in 1788 from old song fragments and his own words and set to a Scottish folk melody. This version has the complete and original lyrics.

For everything you ever wanted to know about Robert Burns and Burns Night go here. If you were fortunate enough to attend a Burns Supper tonight we trust you enjoyed the haggis and the extra dram or two of fine single malt whisky to wash it down.

Alba gu brath - Scotland forever

Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
Alexander Reid, miniature portrait, ca, 1795, National Portrait Gallery Scotland

Text:
poems are public domain

The Gypsy Jazz Of Django Reinhardt

Jazz manouche - gypsy jazz - swept the clubs of Paris in the mid-1930's. The club responsible for this new sound was the Hot Club de France, founded by jazz fans and promoters, Hugh Panassie and Charles Delaunay. They brought together two performers who would become the core of their house band, the Quintette. That band's music continues to both influence jazz and entertain enthusiastic listeners. Our post today commemorates the guitarist, Django Reinhard, who with violinist, Stephane Grappelli, founded the famed quintette. We'll explore Grappelli's story on his birthday later this week.

The 20th century produced a number of fine guitarists in the fields of classical and popular music. And then there was Django Reinhardt, born January 23, 1910 in Belgium. He was a poor gypsy who by the age of twelve could earn his way playing the guitar in the streets and small clubs around Paris. At seventeen a trailer fire left him with a severely injured hand but he soon developed a new fingering style and with it a unique sound. By 1930 Reinhardt developed an appreciation of American jazz and began incorporating its elements in his playing. In a few years he would go on to meet the violinist, Stephane Grappelli, an equally free musical spirit and innovator. They soon formed a new group, the "Quintette du Hot Club de France", and a "hot swing" sound that would make music as well as music history for the next twenty years. At its core was the Reinhardt style that has influenced guitarists for more than eight decades.

And here is the Reinhardt sound as part of the group he co-founded with Grappelli.

Reinhardt died in 1953 at the age of 43, but his impact has lived on for decades. Even today, almost every celebrity guitarist in the world of popular music, jazz, blues and rock and roll would acknowledge Reinhardt as an influence in their music. Here is an entertaining musical link to an NPR Jazz Live blog expanding on Reinhardt's legacy.




Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
Reinhardt photo, William P. Gottlieb Collection, Library of Congress


Text:

wikipedia.org
theguardian.com, Nigel Kennedy article, December 19, 2007
Louis Miner, Paris Jazz: A Guide From the Jazz Age to the Present, The Little Bookroom, New York, 2005

The Night Jazz Arrived

In 1935 Benny Goodman and his band had a regular late-night gig on Saturdays on NBC's radio program, Let's Dance. Broadcast from New York, most of the local teens and twenty-somethings who enjoyed his music were fast asleep. On the other hand, it was perfect timing for young audiences on the West Coast. A labor strike brought the program to an unexpected end and put Goodman and his band out of work. Together they decided on a coast to coast tour. In the interior states, the tour was a disaster because people didn't care for "upbeat" jazz arranged for orchestra. The band was looking forward to the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles as the last stop and an end to the pain. When they arrived thousands of young fans who had heard them on the radio were waiting to hear them in person. What was to be a welcome end to a disastrous tour turned into the beginning of the Swing era.

In the shadow of Bebop, Benny Goodman, 1946

Eighteen months later, the now famous Goodman Orchestra was invited to present a jazz review on January 16, 1938 in New York in Carnegie Hall, a venue historically reserved for "high brow" music. Several members of the Duke Ellington and Count Basie orchestras and others joined on stage to perform a concert ranging from traditional to unconventional. No jazz bandleader had ever performed there. The concert was a sensation, reaffirming Goodman as the "King of Swing," and jazz as serious American music. In the eyes of many music critics and historians, this concert remains the single most important event in popular music history in the United States. Superlatives aside, the concert was a study in swing music history and jazz improvisation.

Publicity style photo of Benny Goodman, ca. 1960

After several curtain calls at the end of the concert, Goodman announced to the screaming fans that an encore would follow. Sing, Sing, Sing was the last song in that set. It already was a popular piece for the band, but this performance lifted it to holy status in the swing jazz genre. Featured players: Gene Kruppa on drums, Babe Russin on saxophone, Harry James on trumpet, Goodman on clarinet, and Jess Stacy in a masterpiece of improvisation on piano.

After January 16, 1938, jazz soon became mainstream American music. Recordings of the concert have remained in print as best sellers since 1950 when Goodman found long-forgotten acetate tape masters given to him the night of the concert. In 1998 aluminum studio masters were discovered and released as a set of compact discs that became one of the best selling live jazz recordings ever.

Sources


Photos and Illustrations:
1946, Library of Congress, William Gottlieb Collection
ca. 1970, public domain, publicity style candid photo of Benny Goodman

Text:
bennygoodman.com
Benny Goodman entry, wikipedia.org

The First Sunday After Epiphany: The Feast Of The Baptism Of The Lord

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On this day, the First Sunday After Epiphany, many Christians celebrate the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist in the Jordan River.  

The Baptism of Christ                    William Blake, about 1799

From Mark 1:4-11 (NIV)

4 And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. 6 John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7 And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8 I baptize you with[a] water, but he will baptize you with[b] the Holy Spirit.”

The Baptism and Testing of Jesus

9 At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

 And from Martin Luther's 1534 sermon on the baptism of Jesus:

So we should learn to understand baptism and cherish it, because it contains the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—or even just the name of Christ, as reported in Acts.10 It is sufficient to be baptized in the name of Christ, because the Father and the Holy Spirit are there [where he is]. So don’t separate the water from the word, but say, “The water is ordained by God to make us pure for Christ’s sake, for the sake of the Father and the Holy Spirit. They are there in the water to purify us from sin and death.” Whoever is in sin, stick them in the baptism[al water], and their sin will be extinguished. Whoever is in death, stick them in the baptism[al water], and death will be swallowed up. For baptism has divine power, the power to break sin and death. That’s why we are baptized. If later we fall into error or sin, we have not thereby demolished our baptism; we return to it, and say, “God has baptized me, plunged me into the baptism[al water] of his Son, of the Father and the Holy Spirit. There I return, and I trust that my baptism will take away my sin—not for my sake, but for the sake of the man Christ, who instituted it.”

Here is some music for the day, J.S. Bach's Cantata BWV 7, "Christ our Lord came to the Jordan." Titles for its seven sections are based on the first line of each stanza of a Martin Luther hymn of the same name.  

Sources

Photos and Illustrations:

Wikimedia Commons, File: William Blake - The Baptism of Christ

Text:

 Word & World, Volume XVI, Number 1 Winter 1996

Carl Sandburg: The Voice Of Heartland And History

The American lecturer, journalist, poet, biographer, editor and folk singer, Carl Sandburg was born this week (January 6) in 1878 in Galesburg, Illinois. He remains my favorite American socialist. Those of us who had a childhood in the 1950s grew up knowing Sandburg rather well as he enjoyed near iconic status as a literary figure. By 1950 his most significant work had already appeared but he maintained a busy working retirement at his farm, Connemara, located in western North Carolina, where he produced about one-third of his total literary output.

Carl Sandburg, 1955                    Library of Congress Photo

Sandburg was widely known as the voice of the American people, especially the working men and women who built a new and prosperous nation out of dreams and sweat. In spite of his popularity, he was a family man at heart who loved the warmth and activities associated with his close-knit family consisting of his wife, Lillian Steichen Sandburg and their three children and their families.

Here is a fascinating 1956 interview giving us a glimpse of Sandburg the man, his personality, and his works, all delivered in his wonderful oratorical style developed over many years on the lecture circuit as a young man. I think this is thirty minutes readers will enjoy not only for the entertainment value but also for Sandburg's commentary and insight on the American experience. As you will soon discover we could certainly use his wisdom today.

There is much more on Sandburg and his family at the National Park Service website for Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site. Over the course of my career I had the pleasure of working several months with the staff and resources at this historic site. In fact, I was offered the opportunity to manage the place in the mid 90's, but timing and circumstance kept me from accepting it.  As time and fate would have it, my only direct association with Lillian and Carl Sandburg at Connemara will remain my late father-in-law's goat trading with them and their award-winning herd of Chikaming dairy goats.

If you decide to read one biography, make it Penelope Niven's Carl Sandburg: A Biography (1991). Most enjoyable.

Alan Watts: Forever Dancing In The Here And Now

 

By the late 1960s he had become rather well-known on the American scene as much for living "in the moment" in alcohol, experimental drugs, and other excesses as for his writing and vast collection of audiovisual productions. Classical Zen masters criticized him for practicing a light version of Buddhism. Many in the counterculture of the time latched on to his eccentrism and independent thought as a beacon in what they viewed as a western world in decline. Either way, he would say that he was what he did. We can do nothing more or less than accept the full man. So who was this man whose portraits seemed to remind me of a clever and mischievous child?

His name was Alan Watts. He was born January 6, 1915, in Britain where he developed a keen interest in Asian studies. He moved to the U.S. in the late 1930’s and became an Episcopal priest in 1943. After seven years Watts left the church and returned to the study of Asian philosophy and religion full-time. When he died in November 1973 he left the world over two dozen books, hundreds of pamphlets and briefs, countless audio tapes, and well over a thousand hours of audiovisual recordings offering his original thoughts on the Western expression of Zen/ Zen Buddhism and Asian thought. For further reading I recommend his autobiography, In My Own Way, published in 1972. It is an lively book providing readers with a memorable glimpse at American culture and character in the generation following World War II.

And how did I come to know of Watts and his world? In 1968 documentary filmmakers, Irving and Elda Hartley, produced a fourteen-minute film entitled Buddhism: Man and Nature. Watts wrote the script and provided the narration. For the Hartleys, it was an award winning addition to their series on spirituality and religion. For others, particularly those studying or working in natural resource management, ecology and related fields, the film was a compelling prescription for understanding and appreciating our natural world. It is in that context that I encountered it in the early 1970’s as a new employee of the National Park Service.

Within days after seeing Buddhism: Man and Nature I transcribed the narration and proceeded to carry it with me for more than 36 years fulfilling my employer's mission to help people appreciate, understand, and preserve some of the finest natural and cultural landscapes throughout the nation.

The film never influenced my personal religious convictions but it certainly impacted my understanding of the human place and role in natural landscapes. Alan Watts’s powerful script writing as well as his transcendent narration motivated me to look deeper into the man and his writings. Over the next decade his books on Zen, Asian philosophy and the West's response, and human behavior grew to occupy well over two feet of shelf space in my library.

What happened to the transcript I typed on my trusty Smith-Corona portable way back when? Well-tattered and coffee stained, it sits enshrined in the household safe. Its message is still on my mind as I work with a group dedicated to the preservation of Watt's last residence. The rustic home and library is in Druid Heights across the Golden Gate from San Francisco. Now essentially abandoned this cultural landscape and cluster of vernacular architecture designed and built a band of mid-20th century  beats, bohemians, and activists sits quietly on Mount Tamalpais in what is now Muir Woods National Monument.hile the

Whilte the remnants of Watts's last residence and the community he knew slips away into the fog-shrouded forest, dedicated pilgrims from around the world visit the site. At the same time millions of people continue to explore and enjoy his contributions to human behavior, philosophy, and religion as they walk their lives in their own way.


rld 
Photos and Illustration:
kpfa.org

Text:
title: from a self-descriptive quote in his autobiography, In My Own Way

wikipedia.org
alanwatts.com

Epiphany 2025

Today is Epiphany, the celebration of the visit of the Magi to the infant Jesus, and their recognition or revelation of Him as the King of Kings.

The Adoration of the Kings              William Blake, 1799

There is but one popular American carol for the celebration of Epiphany. It was written by the Episcopal clergyman, John Henry Hopkins, Jr., and appeared in print in 1863 in a collection of his sacred music.

And here is a piece I first wrote in 2009 about the celebration of the Twelve Days of Christmas, an event that often ends in Twelfth Night parties or the presentation of gifts on Epiphany:

We can only imagine what it must have been like to celebrate Christmas for twelve days. The festivities, including the giving of one gift a day, then opening all of them on Twelfth Night or the following day (Epiphany). It must have delighted children. I suspect that a few of those gifts were modest by today's standards, perhaps as simple as an orange or bag of special candy. My dad once told me that as far back as he could remember, his Aunt Lizzie (shown here in 1912

when she was 24) had always given her nieces and nephews several gifts including a popcorn ball wrapped in colored cellophane. I'm sure they were a part of Lizzie's childhood in the late 1880s and 90s when popcorn was wildly popular. Like many women of her era Lizzie never married choosing instead to care for her parents and brothers. When my dad's generation married and had children of their own, she continued her generosity, including the distribution of those popcorn balls up through her last Christmas in 1958. By that time, her popcorn ball making had turned into a small industry - we were a large family.

And so, every Christmas for my first twelve years, I eagerly accompanied my parent to Lizzie's home to exchange gifts and return home with a bag of popcorn balls. For some reason, my parents never carried on Lizzie's tradition, nor have I. It may be too late for my kids, and grandchildren are rather unlikely in the near future. Still, I think it's never too late to enjoy a batch.


Aunt Lizzie's Christmas Popcorn Balls

8 cups of popcorn
1 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup of sorghum syrup
1/3 cup of water
1/4 cup softened butter
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla

Red and green cellophane or similar transparent wrap
String


Combine the sugar, sorghum, water, butter and salt in a saucepan over medium heat and stir until sugar dissolves. Continue cooking until the mixture reaches about 250 degrees or hardens when dropped into cold water. Remove from heat, stir in the vanilla, and pour over the popcorn. Working quickly, mix thoroughly, butter your hands and shape popcorn into balls about four inches wide. Let them cool on wax paper. Wrap each ball in red or green cellophane and secure with a ribbon. Distribute to wide-eyed youngsters or oldsters alike.


Sounds like a tradition in the making.

The Twelfth - And Last - Day Of Christmas 2024-25 Ends In The Parties Of Twelfth Night

Today is the twelfth and final day of Christmastide or the Twelve Days of Christmas. This day is important among Christians who maintain liturgical traditions: first, it marks the end of a 1500 year-old festival celebrating the birth of Christ, and second, it is the eve of Epiphany. It is also the beginning of the carnival season ending with Mardi Gras and the beginning of Lent. Those who are reluctant to bid Christmas farewell can take heart knowing that some traditions of Christmastide extend through February 2 or Candlemas, the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple. Candlemas occurs on the 40th day of and the end of the liturgical Christmas-Epiphany season. In my home I'll be removing decorations day by day until February 2 when our simple manger scene stands alone in the library awaiting Christmas future.

For some the Twelve Days of Christmas will end with elaborate costumes, masks, feasting, music, dancing, and theater at Twelfth Night festivities where misrule is the only rule. They are indeed topsy-turvy events. Only the Surveyor of Ceremonies will appear without a mask. He will direct the company through a series of games and other activities beginning with the distribution of the Twelfth Cakes. When all the party goers have arrived, each will select a small festival cake or cake slice. Three of those cakes contain a hidden bean or token designating them as the king cake, queen cake and fool cake. The lucky holders of the royal cakes oversee the evening's activities before returning to their normal lives, most likely "below the salt."

Twelfth Night (The King Drinks)           David Teniers, ca 1634

These Twelfth Night traditions have been part of western culture for over a thousand years. Some traditions carry over the night into Epiphany, January 6. This is the case in New Orleans where Twelfth Night parties have been popular for centuries due in part to their role as opening events of the Carnival season.

Twelfth Night festivities in New Orleans in 1884

We trust that you have experienced a wonder-filled Christmas. May you live throughout this new year in the spirit of Twelfth Night, finding joy and happiness in what often seems a disordered world. In the words of William Shakespeare, who had a bit to say about this evening in Twelfth Night, (Act II, Scene 5):

Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.
Great or common - What you will!

And speaking of greatness here is music for the season, Johann Sebastian Bach's Magnificat in D Major. The composition was originally written in Leipzig for Christmas 1723 and contained four seasonal hymns. In 1730 the composer revised the work by dropping the four seasonal hymns and changing the key to D Major. The second version is the one most often head today. An English translation in parallel format is available here. This 2000 performance is by the Arnold Shoenberg Choir and the pioneer period instrument ensemble, Concentus Musicus Vienna. Conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt and his wife founded the ensemble in 1953. 

Hope you're enjoying a serving of Chatham Artillery Punch tonight.

The Eleventh Day Of Christmas 2024-25

 

On this penultimate evening of the Twelve Days of Christmas it's cold and calm on Laurel Ridge. It's so clear the first stars shining blue white, yellow, and red feel close. I am reminded of other stars and other nights as this festival nears its close.

Lux Aurumque (Light and Gold)

Lux,

Calida gravisque pura velut aurum

Et canunt angeli molliter

modo natum.

Light,

warm and heavy as pure gold

and angels sing softly

to the new-born babe.

  

Sources


Photos and Illustration:
Family files

Text:
ericwhitacre.com, Lux Aurumque, lyrics by Edward Esch translated to Latin by Charles Anthony Silvestri

The Tenth Day Of Christmas 2024-25

This Tenth Day of Christmas is another quiet day on the church calendar. To match that mood here is some profoundly simple and beautiful music written in 1894 by the American modernist composer, Charles Ives. He moved quickly from traditional composition to experimental music which sadly left him unrecognized during his lifetime. Years after his death he would emerge as one of the most influential composers of the 20th century.

Little star of Bethlehem!

Do we see Thee now?

Do we see Thee shining

O'er the tall trees?

Little child of Bethlehem!

Do we hear Thee in our hearts?

Hear the angels singing:

Peace on earth, good will to men!

Noel!

O'er the cradle of a King

Hear the Angels sing:

In Excelsis Gloria, Gloria!

From his Father's home on high,

Lo! for us He came to die;

Hear the Angels sing:

Venite adoremus Dominum

And in case you didn't meet a chimney sweep or kiss a pig on New Year's Day to ensure yourself a year of good fortune, perhaps these postcards from the Vienna Succession's Wiener Werkstatte will work.

And if two chimney sweeps, a pig and a pretty girl don't leave you with high hopes for the new year, this music from the genius of Igor Stravinsky should do it. The music is the finale from The Firebird, composed in 1910 for a ballet based on a Russian fairy tale about a mythical bird who helps a prince conquer evil. The Firebird is a brilliant work as fresh today today as the day it was composed. I like to think of it as a symbol of the promise of a fresh new year bringing an end to a rather anxious 2024.  Enjoy.

Out of the remains of an old year a new year rises.







Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
postcards, theviennasecession.com

The Ninth Day Of Christmas 2024-25

With New Year's Day and the Eighth Day of Christmas behind us we move on the Ninth Day, a rather quiet time in Christmastide. In the Catholic tradition it is the Feast of Saints Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops and Doctors of the Church. It is a day to celebrate the virtue of friendship. Christmastide does indeed focus us on the memories of family and friends. Over many years the happenings of this season become riveted in our memories as significant and unforgettable emotional events. In the quiet hours following Christmas Day and the coming of the new year, I sit conversing with the faces in the fire. My thoughts meander over those Christmases past, of friends one time near and dear now lost in time, of family and our traditions in America now reaching their thirteenth generation.

Although German traditions remain strong in our family one of my dearest memories is that of my Welsh bloodline introduced by my grandmother's parents who immigrated to the United States from Cardiff, Wales, in the early 1870's. Although I don't remember my grandmother - she died before my second birthday - my father always reminded me of her Celtic pride and Welsh ancestry expressed especially in a love for song and singing. It wasn't until the 20th century that Wales produced artists singing in English and known internationally. One of them was was the poet, Dylan Thomas, whose compelling recitations approached hypnosis where words became song.

My family likely became aware of Thomas through his trips to the U.S. made over a span of about four years beginning in 1950. His trips always made sensational news for he was not only a rising star worshiped in metropolitan and university salons but also a boisterous character prone to drunkenness and colorful language. Indeed, his trip in 1953 ended in death from pneumonia while in New York. One could say he covered the full spectrum of life and when he spoke of it in verse or prose he made music. I first heard a recording of Thomas reading his work in anelementary school English class sometime in the mid-1950's. I've read and listened to him since then. What follows has been a favorite Thomas story in my family for over sixty years. In that time I read it or portions of it to women I loved, to a few thousand students, and to my children.

When Dylan Thomas brings voice to his work it makes for some of the finest readings in the English language. When he reads A Child's Christmas in Wales it is magic. It is my gift to you in this holy season:

What an extraordinary reading.

To continue our theme of memory and love of friends and family here is the
internationally known Welsh bass-baritone, Bryn Terfel, singing All Through the Night, an ancient lullaby from his homeland. Complete lyrics follow the video.

Sleep my child and peace attend thee,
All through the night
Guardian angels God will send thee,
All through the night
Soft the drowsy hours are creeping,
Hill and dale in slumber sleeping
I my loved ones' watch am keeping,
All through the night

Angels watching, e'er around thee,
All through the night
Midnight slumber close surround thee,
All through the night
Soft the drowsy hours are creeping,
Hill and dale in slumber sleeping
I my loved ones' watch am keeping,
All through the night

While the moon her watch is keeping
All through the night
While the weary world is sleeping
All through the night
O'er thy spirit gently stealing
Visions of delight revealing
Breathes a pure and holy feeling
All through the night

Angels watching ever round thee
All through the night
In thy slumbers close surround thee
All through the night
They will of all fears disarm thee,
No forebodings should alarm thee,
They will let no peril harm thee
All through the night.

Though I roam a minstrel lonely
All through the night
My true harp shall praise sing only
All through the night
Love's young dream, alas, is over
Yet my strains of love shall hover
Near the presence of my lover
All through the night

Hark, a solemn bell is ringing
Clear through the night
Thou, my love, art heavenward winging
Home through the night
Earthly dust from off thee shaken
Soul immortal shalt thou awaken
With thy last dim journey taken
Home through the night





Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
themagpiesfantasy.blogspot.com; photo still from Marvin Lightner production of A Child's Christmas in Wales, 1963.

Text:
catholicculture.org
wikipedia.org

New Year's Day 2025 And The Eighth Day Of Christmas

 

Happy New Year
2025!

In much of Western Christianity this day is also celebrated either as the Solemnity of Mary or the Festival of the Circumcision and Name of Jesus. The Word for the day is simply one verse, Luke 2:21:

And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

Here are two music selections for the day. The first is Johann Sebastian Bach's cantata for New Year's Day, Jesu, nun sei gepreiset, [Jesus, now be praised.], BWV 41. Those who would enjoy an English translation will find one here.

The second selection is Levy-Dew, a Welsh carol for New Year's Day set to the music of the British composer, Benjamin Britten. The custom of Levy-Dew derives from an ancient tradition of drawing water from a well and sprinkling it on townspeople as a means of cleansing or preparing them to face the new year.

Llanllawer Holy Well and stream Pembrokeshire Richard Law

Here we bring new water from the well so clear

To worship God, with this happy New Year

Sing levy dew, sing levy dew, the water and the wine;

the seven bright gold wires and the bugles that do shine.

Sing reign of Fair Maid, with gold upon her toe,

Open you the West Door, and turn the Old Year go.

Sing levy dew, sing levy dew, etc.

Sing reign of Fair Maid, with gold upon her chin,

Open you the East Door, and let the New Year in.

Sing levy dew, sing levy dew, etc.

The postcard at the top of the page was sent to Charles, my great uncle, in 1907. The message on the back reads, "May the new year prove a bright, happy and prosperous one to you is the wish of your Brooklyn friend." Her name was Nellie. I know nothing about their friendship and although they are now both lost to history she certainly left us with a timeless message for the new year.

Bright

Happy

Prosperous

2025!