Archive for December 2022

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The First (and Last) day of Advent...

And here ends advent for 2022. Thank you for joining me along the way. Tonight marks the beginning of our Christmas celebration. I want to close with perhaps one of the most beautiful contemporary choral Christmas works I have heard. I had the great pleasure of singing in the recording you'll hear which we performed for the

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The Second Day of Advent...

By Christianna Hellwig with 1 Comments

This morning, when I woke, the sun was shining brightly in a dazzlingly blue sky. Those of you who know me will understand why this did not please me. However, the wind was also blustering quite strongly, knocking the branches of our trees together and maintaining that consistent dull roar outside that often comes before or after

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The Third Day of Advent...

By Christianna Hellwig with 1 Comments

This year, I discovered that Latin is my favourite language to sing in. It doesn't seem to matter that I only understand it haltingly. Perhaps it's the way Latin songs flow, or the fact that Latin songs are generally sacred. There's something about the way the words flow set to music that makes me so very happy.

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The Fourth Day of Advent...

By Christianna Hellwig with 1 Comments

As I considered the carol for today, as well as listening to an exhorbitant number of interpretations on youtube, looking for one that I wanted, I realized that this might be one of the simplest, most straightforward presentations of the gospel I have ever encountered in a Christmas carol. Written in Gaelic by Mary MacDougal of Scotland,

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The Fifth Day of Advent...

By Christianna Hellwig with 1 Comments

Alright, this doesn't really have anything to do with lullabys or cradles. This one is a beautiful song speaking from the perspective of the magi who came to visit Jesus approximately two years after his birth. Even if they weren't there on the day, they are inextricably linked to the Christmas story. I don't have much to

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The Sixth Day of Advent...

By Christianna Hellwig with 1 Comments

Due to an appalling lack of time, today's post will not only be brief, but will also recycle a carol I shared in this series a few years ago. It's been long enough that I think many of you reading this now may have either forgotten about this carol or weren't even following my blog at this

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The Seventh Day of Advent...

By Christianna Hellwig with 1 Comments

The carol I'm sharing today is probably familiar to most of you and I know I've shared it multiple times, but I'm sharing it again because I just love it. Once again, this establishes my claim that German carols are some of the best there are. I'm going to go ahead and share the German and English

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The Eighth Day of Advent...

By Christianna Hellwig with 1 Comments

I didn't intend it, but I've realized that all my songs this year seem to be centered around the ignominy of the cradle and are either lullabys or refer to the manger in some specific sense. Today's carol is no exception. On the other side of the centuries from Bach, today's carol comes to us from one

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The Ninth Day of Advent

By Christianna Hellwig with 1 Comments

I have little to say about today's carol. A German poem by Paul Gerhardt set to music by J.S. Bach. This is not because it is a poor song, but because it is so great, so complete. My blathering on would be unnecessary and annoying. Just reading these beautiful verses had tears springing to my eyes. Since

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