A Partrige in A Pear Tree

 

         Yes, it is that time of year again. There is, at very least frost on the ground outside this morning and I migrated quickly downstairs as my room becomes an icebox in this season. I'm so grateful. There's something about the cold that makes me feel more alive and present, something that makes me want to move (beyond the simple need to stay warm), sing, and interact with others.

           It's why I'm so grateful that we chose our Christmas date for winter time (At least for those of us who live in the Northern Hemisphere). Festivals during the cold are the best possible kinds. 

        The picture above is Elliot and I at a concert we sang in this past Sunday. I should have liked to get a couple more of my brothers in on it, but they were here, there, and everywhere this season. Elliot was a start, I'll work on the rest. It all goes to show, once again, what an enjoyable season this is. I know I've mentioned before that Christmas begins in August for musicians, and this year was no exceptions. I love the fact that music ramps up around this time. I'm convinced we need it to keep us sane in this mad little world of ours and it is one of the greatest gifts God gives us with which to express our praise.

         Of course, that is slightly partial coming from a musician, but I think all of us have been moved by music before. I know I will bawl my eyes out during most any classical concert and many other genres as well, as was demonstrated at last year's Carolina In the Fall festival in Wilkesboro under Jens Kruger's Moonshine Sonata. Even if you're not me, though, you've probably had a moment sometime in your life where a song, or a piece of music has made you cry. If not, then I don't know that pounding you in a mortar with a pestle would elicit a noteworthy response and I am sorry for you. However, I think for most, if not all of us, music has stirred our hearts and minds at some point. 

Why?

Why does music have such power over us? 

Sometimes when I'm listening to music I love (Most of the time, actually), I feel as though there is a message being transferred, a story being told, just out of my frame of reference...one that I can barely brush my fingers across, but not quite hit upon. It's been frustrating to me. I've gotten so immersed in a piece of music, trying to sort out the different threads, colours, and motifs, attempting to pierce the shroud of communicability, that I've almost gotten into an accident, so lost was I to everything going on around me.

It's as though it's a language that our sub-conscious can grasp but not our consciousness. I often wonder if we will actually understand it fully in eternity. Perhaps that's why it makes me cry, makes me inexpressibly happy, so happy that my chest hurts and I shed tears, tears of longing, tears of hope, tears of mourning for something lost which can never be regained this side of the grave. 

You know what I mean, right?

That's what today's carol, the first to kick of 2023s Christmas season, does for me. It was one of the songs we were not going to sing for the aforementioned concert.

I can see you scratching your head over that one. Allow me to elaborate. The song list changed slightly between our beginning to rehearse and the final concert lineup. This was one of the songs which got cut and I'm still slightly irritated about it. I'm sure they had their reasons but had it been me in charge, I would have fought tooth and nail to keep it in the programme. 

I first heard All Praise to Thee sung by the men's a-Capella group Glad about eight or nine years ago, to the tune O Waly Waly, which is quite a nice tune, but I kept thinking that the words really deserved their own tune, something new and written specifically for the stanzas.

I got my wish when contemporary composer Elaine Hagenburg took up her pen (metaphorically speaking) and wrote the beautiful arrangement I'm going to share with you now.

The first stanza was adapted from an 11th century Latin Sequence Grates Nunc Omnes Reddamus(Our Thanks We Render to You Now) into the German vernacular and then added to by Martin Luther in the early fifteen hundreds and published as Gelobet Seist Du, Jesu Christ,(Praised Are You, Jesus Christ) and sung, presumably, to an old melody circa 1400. Usually I am a great proponent of the original tune, but in this case, even after being arranged by Michael Pratorious, the old tune simply doesn't strike me. I was waiting for something better when Hagenburg's arrangement was brought to my attention this year.

Enough talk, I invite you to listen for yourselves.

All praise to Thee, eternal God,
Who, clothed in garb of flesh and blood,
Dost take a manger for Thy throne,
While worlds on worlds are Thine alone.
Hallelujah!

Once did the skies before Thee bow;
A virgin's arms contain Thee now,
While angels, who in Thee rejoice,
Now listen for Thine infant voice.
Hallelujah!

A little Child, Thou art our Guest
That weary ones in Thee may rest;
Forlorn and lowly is Thy birth
That we may rise to heaven from earth.
Hallelujah!

Thou comest in the darksome night
To make us children of the light,
To make us in the realms divine,
Like Thine own angels, round Thee shine.
Hallelujah!

All this for us Thy love hath done;
By This to Thee our love is won;
For this our joyful songs we raise
And shout our thanks in ceaseless praise.
Hallelujah!

     That Christ, the Lord, the Creator of the universe should come down and be a part of His creation for a time, all to save them from the consequences of their own rebellion is simply staggering, the best comparison I can imagine is if we were to voluntarily choose to become amoeba for a time, but the analogy breaks down since we didn't create amoeba, we have no ability to become them, and the gulf between God and us is far greater than that between us and amoeba. What a thought!

I think remembering our own smallness and God's greatness is an excellent way to kick off this year's edition of Lessons and Carols of the advent season. May this music uplift you and bring you to your knees!

    Until tomorrow,

              ~ Christianna