The Virtual Musical Advent Calendar, December 23: It Came Upon A Midnight Clear
Our last three days of this Advent Calendar will be closing out over the next three days, as we celebrate Christmas Eve, Christmas and St. Stephens Day in quick succession. This is therefore our last “regular day,” and I thought I’d post a few songs that I associate with the Episcopal church my parents, wife, and son have called home.
Let’s start with one of my favorite carol recordings from the past few years, Sixpence None the Richer’s It Came Upon A Midnight Clear.
It Came Upon A Midnight Clear was a poem written by Edmund Sears, one of those Massachusetts Unitarian ministers I talked about in my history of the War on Christmas post — the ones trying to get the nation to adapt Christmas into a spiritual and family event. He wrote the poem in 1949, and the following year composer Richard Willis, a student of Felix Mendelssohn put it to music. (The Animals used to perform the poem to the tune of their signature traditional folksong, House of the Rising Sun, but I have never been able to track down a recording.)
Another poem with a Mendelssohn connection that has been pulled into annual Episcopal duty is Charles Wesley’s Hark the Herald Angels Sing. Wesley wrote the poem in 1739 hoping that someone would eventually put it to music, and in fact many did. Mendelssohn wrote the tune you most likely associate Hark the Herald Angels Sing with one hundred years after its initial publication, but his wasn’t the first. In fact, during Wesley’s lifetime it was mostly associated with the music of G.F. Handel, and was sung to the same tune as Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus. (The other poem put to Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus, See the Conqu’ring Hero Comes, is still played during advent in Ireland.)
There are many great versions of Hark the Herald Angels Sing, but those that have been following this Advent Calendar will not be surprised at my favorite. After all, the image of it being sung has been the signature image of this entire endeavor:
Lastly, I’ll post a version of my favorite non-popular Anglican carol, Gabriel’s Message. Gabriel’s Message may be the only carol I know that originated as a Basque folk song. Modern listeners may have been introduced to an electronic version by Sting recorded in 1985, which was released as the B-side to his Russians single. But it is this arrangement by Sting, done decades later, that most resonates with me:
Click here to see all selections for The Virtual Musical Advent Calendar.
Follow Tod on Twitter, view his archive, or email him. Visit him at TodKelly.com
The composer Felix Mendelssohn, the grandson of the famous Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, was baptized and raised as a Christian, since his father felt that assimilation was necessary for success, which helps explain both why he wrote Christmas music and why the idea of Jews celebrating Christmas just like normal people leaves a bad taste in some of our mouths.Report
Hey, there’s three more days and then you never have to see these again.Report
Not at all, I’m enjoying these a lot. Just as a tourist, not a native.Report
Jews celebrating Christmas leaves a bad taste in some people mouth’s because Felix Mendelssohn’s dad decided to be an assimilationist, or in any case to have his son baptized and raise him as a Christian?
Learn something every day.Report
Jews celebrating Christmas is a step towards assimilation, and we can see where that leads.Report
So you’re saying that Felix Mendelssohn is not necessarily specifically on the minds of most Jews who worry about assimilationist tendencies? Point is, unless a person’s already worried about it, I’m missing why considering Felix stands out as something to make you worry about it. If you’re already worried about it, then Felix is just one more case of what you don’t want to see (for reasons you already know). But if you’re not, what is it about Felix in particular that makes people go from not worrying to worrying?Report
What about “helps explain” (as opposed to, say, “is the proximate cause of”) is unclear?Report
It seems to me one of two things could be going on here. The problem with Herr Mendelssohn had little to do with his decision and everything to do with the society he was in: it was actually the case that being true to Judaism at that time hindered success, to say the least. There were heavy pressures to assimilate, or just deny one’s faith and culture altogether, if not convert.
It seems to me two things could be going on with reactions to contemporary Jews who partake in certain aspects of winter celebrations that are associated with Christmas. People could think that they are bending to pressures still around today that are vestiges of the outright force that Jews in past centuries faced to assimilate, or their assimilation could simply be reminding people of those pressures. I’ve been asking in these threads about the nature of the pressure that people feel to conform in an attempt to better understand the how it feels to be Jewish today in the midst of Christmas. I haven’t gotten much response. People say that there is pressure to conform, but they don’t say much more about it. The threads, to me indicate more overt pressure from coreligionists not to, tbh.
The other thing that could be going on is a feeling that today, with so much freedom to act as we please, it’s a dishonor to the struggle of people like the Mendelssohns and all other Jewish families of earlier times to blithely participate in non-Jewish celebrations (assimilate) because it feels good, when people before had to sacrifice so much in order to choose not to do that. I completely understand that reaction. The only problem is, no one other than them, is them. I’m guessing most people who do this are pretty aware of this history; the reality is that how they feel today is how they feel. And I guess how you feel about how they feel is how you feel too, so fair enough. But it seems to me that the thing to be concerned about is not anyone’s free choice to celebrate as they choose, but the ways in which that choice is weighed upon by the dominant culture in unwelcome ways. No one should feel pressured to celebrate in any way they’re not comfortable with, but at the same time, whom does it help to look askance at people who are doing what works or feels good for their own family?Report
..Maybe I should have read it as “that his father lived in a society that made him feel that assimilation was necessary for success,” (or even just general knowledge that that is how society was) rather than Mendelssohn himself specifically feeling that way. I honestly thought you were saying that you know a fair number of people who are bothered by the specific example of Felix Mendelssohn. Obviously, I didn’t think you were saying that most were, though for it to be on their minds doesn’t mean it’s the proximate cause. I’m just not clear, as I’ve said multiple times now, what you were saying about the role the specific example plays in how many people’s thinking.Report
I’d say everything about “helps explain” is unclear. I guess I never had any sense of what part you were saying the example of Mendelssohn plays in any group of people’s thought on the matter of a size worth considering as a group rather than as individuals, or even your own, as an example that is of greater note for its demonstrative badness than any of, what, at least hundreds of families in that place at that time doing the same thing to get by. The issue was the extraordinary pressure they faced to assimilate, not anything about Mendelssohn, right? That’s just a famous name. Or no? The issue is the degree of pressure not to be Jewish that existed in the society, especially if you were looking to be upwardly mobile, is it not? If the issue is that we need to have the conversation about how different things are or aren’t today, then maybe that’s the issue. I’m not really equipped to participate in that discussion, but, as I say, I’ve been asking the questions.Report
Whoops, misthread. I’ve already said too much. I’ll take my leave.Report