A Sacred Christmas (S4 | E209)

A Sacred Christmas Ft. A Ceremony of Carols

Have you watched The Holiday yet? Love Hard (on Netflix)? At least you caught The Shop Around the Corner… Christmas in Connecticut? Ah and – a new one… Holiday on 5th Avenue… a winner!!

My, my you ARE behind. Let’s get you in the holiday spirit right here and right now… after all Christmas is Coming. A Sacred Christmas.

We have a special collection of music in the classical style… we’ll call it classical with a small “c.” Some from the Baroque, Classical and Romantic Eras. And a few pieces (see Rutter and Whitacre!) are very recent. A Sacred Christmas this week on Lester the Nightfly.

Wexford Carol

The Wexford Carol is a traditional religious Irish Christmas carol originating from County Wexford and, specifically, Enniscorthy (whence its other name). The subject of the song is the nativity of Jesus Christ.

“The Wexford Carol”, sometimes known by its first verse “Good people all this Christmas time”, is of uncertain origins and while it is occasionally claimed to be from the early Middle Ages, it likely was composed in the 15th or 16th century based on its musical and lyrical style.

Hector Berlioz L’enfance du Christ

Louis-Hector Berlioz (11 December 1803 – 8 March 1869) was a French Romantic composer and conductor. 

L’enfance du Christ (The Childhood of Christ), Opus 25, is an oratorio by the French composer Hector Berlioz, based on the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt (see Gospel of Matthew 2:13). Berlioz wrote his own words for the piece. Most of it was composed in 1853 and 1854, but it also incorporates an earlier work La fuite en Egypte (1850). It was first performed at the Salle Herz, Paris on 10 December 1854, with Berlioz conducting and soloists from the Opéra-Comique: Jourdan (Récitant), Depassio (Hérode), the couple Meillet (Marie and Joseph) and Bataille (Le père de famille).

The Coventry Carol

The “Coventry Carol” is an English Christmas carol dating from the 16th century. The carol was traditionally performed in Coventry in England as part of a mystery play called The Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors. The play depicts the Christmas story from chapter two in the Gospel of Matthew: the carol itself refers to the Massacre of the Innocents, in which Herod ordered all male infants under the age of two in Bethlehem to be killed, and takes the form of a lullaby sung by mothers of the doomed children.

J.S. Bach Christmas Oratorio

The Christmas Oratorio (German: Weihnachtsoratorium), BWV 248, is an oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach intended for performance in church during the Christmas season. It is in six parts, each part a cantata intended for performance in a church service on a feast day of the Christmas period. It was written for the Christmas season of 1734 and incorporates music from earlier compositions, including three secular cantatas written during 1733 and 1734 and a largely lost church cantata, BWV 248a. .The author of the text is unknown, although a likely collaborator was Christian Friedrich Henrici (Picander).