10 Nov Blog: program notes for Noel, Noel
Come to Noel, Noel!
The “best holiday concert of the year!” (Cleveland Classical) returns! Les Délices will perform Noel, Noel this December 5-7th in Akron, Cleveland Heights, and Rocky River. Tickets are available now at my.lesdelices.org/events
Les Délices’ beloved holiday program Noel, Noel explores carols, hymns, and traditional French Noels with origins (mostly) in the seventeenth century. It’s our hope – as with virtually all programs from Les Délices – that you’ll enjoy something familiar, be inspired by something unusual, and depart not only uplifted but with curiosity renewed.
Preview the program notes:
We begin with a brief Simphonie by Michel Richard Delalande (1657-1726) that takes a series of French Christmas carols or noels for its thematic material to create a Christmas medley. Like Delalande, Marc Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704) composed his own Noels for instruments ( Noels sur les instruments that show off his own sensitivity to rich harmony and beguiling textures. We’ve reunited two of Charpentier’s instrumental settings (Chantons, je vous en prie and Une jeune pucelle) with their original texts as published by the Parisian printer Christophe Ballard in 1703.
Seventeenth century hymn tunes from the German tradition feature in this program as well. Our arrangement of Es ist ein Ros entsprungen takes the accompaniment from spare to sublime ending with an ethereal descant that elevates the traditional four-voice harmony. By comparison, Dietrich Buxtehude’s short cantata Also hat Gott die Welt geliebt, BuxWV 5 features an ensemble of two violins, viola da gamba, and organ who begin the work with an extended sonata and respond with affirmation to virtually every phrase sung by the solo soprano. Buxtehude even takes advantage of text painting in the phrase “Der bleibet ewig unverloren” (they will remain forever unlost) as wayward chromatic harmonies depict threaten to throw the faithful off course.
Mesmerizing ground bass variations are a secondary thread running through the program. The Renaissance ground bass pattern known as the Romanesca underpins Greensleeves’ though the virtuosic divisions for violin that you’ll hear tonight are drawn from John Playford’s Division Violin (1684). Furthermore, while the tune came to be associated with Christmas and New Years from at least the 1680s, it took on new life in the 1880s as the carol What Child is this with the well-known refrain “On Christmas day in the morning.” Other traditional tunes are so brief – and their energy so infectious – that we’ve chosen to treat them as instrumental ground bass airs with variations: I saw three ships and Tomorrow shall be my dancing day.
Fostering a spirit of generosity, hospitality, and forgiveness in the holiday season Drive the cold winter away first appeared as a broadside ballad. This Elizabethan-era carol went hand-in-hand with Christmas festivities that included wassailing and feasting and the tune was even adopted for social dancing in Henry Playford’s 1651 English Dancing Master. Another 17th century English carol, I saw three ships has been in the repertoire for centuries. It was still being sung in the early 20th century in North America where it was recorded as the folk ballad “As I sat on a sunny bank.”
Mixing Latin with German, Michael Praetorius’ harmonization of the macaronic hymn tune In dulci jubilo was included in the Lutheran hymnal from 1533. For this performance, I’ve decorated Praetorius’ ebullient harmonies with virtuosic divisions for violin and recorder in 17th century style. Christian Geist’s Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern takes a similar approach as a pair of violins and viola da gamba create a swirling, celebratory texture around the hymn tune in the soprano.
A prelude and division by the viol virtuoso and pedagogue Christopher Simpson (c.1605-1669) re-introduces the sounds of seventeenth-century England. But while some song collectors have suggested that The Holly and the Ivy dates back to about 1710, there’s no evidence to suggest its origins prior to the early nineteenth century. However, the song’s sacred/secular imagery – associating the holly’s white flower with the Virgin’s purity and its thorn with Jesus’s crown – dates back to at least the Middle Ages. Similarly, various tunes have been suggested by editors since the 1860s but the best-known tune (and the one we offer in this program) was recorded by the English musicologist and folk-song collector Cecil Sharp in 1911 as he heard it sung by a woman from Gloucestershire.
Like The Holly and the Ivy, The Wexford Carol has disputed origins. With its gapped scale and prominent flat-seventh in the melody, it’s easy to understand why it remains beloved in Appalachia and has long been considered a part of the traditional Irish repertoire. While no single version of the carol contains all the text, traces of it can be found in 17th and early 18th century sources including a broadside ballad “Let all that are to mirth inclined.”