More Holiday Voices

About the Music

by Marcella Pan, Alto 1

Vox has never been a traditional chorus, which is why our first - and perhaps only - holiday concert, is anything but traditional. Drawing from many cultures and musical periods and forms, this concert will surely be a treat for all attendees. We thought knowing a little more about some of the repertoire might make the concert even more enjoyable.
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Villancicos - A Teaching Tool from Spain

One of the musical forms throughout the first half of Holiday Voices is villancicos. These originated during the early Renaissance, and served as a form to teach novices in monasteries and convents key stories and passages from the Bible. From the very beginning they consisted of stanzas and a simple refrain, which was used to highlight the main point of the story. villancicos became very popular in Spain, where they were performed not inside the church, but at the or Pesebres Vivientes or Live Nativities which took place in front on the church building, and in which members of the church and people from the parish relived Christmas night in a live performance. This is why most of the villancicos that survive talk about Mary's and Joseph's pilgrimage to Bethlehem, the night of the Birth, and the visit of the Wise Men, all of which were represented in these Pesebres.

When Spanish priests arrived in the colonies of Central and South America, they realized that villancicos were a great way to teach the Biblical stories and other aspects of the doctrine to the native peoples. While they were performed almost daily in the missions, the largest number of villancicos composed in the colonies deal with Christmas, because many of the pieces they had brought from Spain, which talked about Christ's birth as the light coming to a dark world, and the idea of a very cold December night in which Jesus was born, was completely foreign for most of the natives, who lived in the opposite hemisphere and so had a very warm December and do not have a "white Christmas" in spite of being in the middle of the winter. So most of the villancicos of the New World talk about nature ornamenting the world with flowers and greenery in order to receive Baby Jesus.

Such is the case of Conrad Susa's delicate setting of two villancicos from the Americas which Vox will sing: Oh mi Belén and Alegría (from his cycle Christmas in the Southwest). In both the element of light, flowers and celebration so typical of Latin American Christmas are present. Holiday Voices will also include three Spanish villancicos: A la Nanita Nana set by David Düsong, and Fum, Fum, Fum set by Mack Wilberg , which preserve the original melody and a totally new setting of a text for a villancico by Lope de Vega. Paul Carey's Cantarcillo de la Virgen is perhaps the most striking one of the three, with its combination of a text in Old Spanish with a completely contemporary musical language.

Other Music Intended to Teach

Holiday Voices presents other music outside the villancico tradition, which was also intended to teach. The first is Go where I send thee, a traditional African-American Spiritual. Also known as The Holy Baby or Born in Bethlehem, it has always been widely popular, being recorded by artists such as Peter, Paul and Mary and Johnny Cash.

During slavery in the U.S., a great effort was made to de-Africanize the captives. Inspired by the ring shouts of their African religious services, spirituals served as a way to teach about the Bible and its stories in a simple way. While many popular sources affirm that the slaves used spirituals to give specific directions on how to escape from their masters, the truth is that the only escape promoted by these songs is the liberation achieved by reaching God's Heaven after death. In many cases, Heaven is presented to the slaves as a place where they will find what they lack in this world (such as in "I got shoes", in which the usual barefoot slave is promised shoes to "walk all over God's Heaven"). Some spirituals were merely teaching tools, which is the case with "Go where I send thee". In it, through a simple, child-like cumulative song (in the style of "I bought me a cat") the song is structured as a sequence (or the same musical phrase repeated with different starting pitches) with slight variations of each of the recurrences and a coda, which directly refers to the famous ring shout. The text refers to key characters and events in both the New and Old Testaments. There are various versions of these characters and events, and it is very likely that there has never been a single definitive version, but rather interchangeable references that can be used according to what information was to be reinforced.

The same kind of cumulative song is the famous The Twelve Days of Christmas. This song refers to the period between the day after Christmas (December 26th) and the feast of Epiphany, on the 5th of January. While there has been a lot of debate about the origins of this song, it is most probable that it originated in France and was introduced in England around 1770. The clue to its origin is in the partridge in a pear tree, since it is the French red-legged partridge, which perches in trees more frequently than the English grey partridge. It is also possible that the bird is not a partridge at all, but a perdrix (per-dree) whose name was copied down incorrectly in the written versions in English. The meaning of the twelve "gifts" is still to be truly discovered, but for a long time modern folklore insisted that the song was actually a "catechism" song written in code for young English Catholics to learn their symbols in a time when Catholicism was prohibited in England. While certainly entertaining, there is no evidence that this was ever true. The musical structure is rather simple; while the first part of the phrase remains constant ("On the first/second/etc. day of Christmas my true love gave to me") the first, second and third verses present a variation in the second part. From the third verse onwards, the musical phrase stays the same. On the fifth verse ("Five golden rings") the second part varies, probably to give us some auditory respite. The version that Vox will sing presents a very interesting and surprising coda.

Carols

The concert will also present more traditional carols. Also known as noëls, Christmas carols are English in origin and can be traced all the way back to the thirteenth century, when they began as communal songs. Later, these songs took religious themes and were performed in church. During the Reformation carols disappeared, but were rediscovered during the nineteenth century and spread to the whole of Europe (with the exception of Spain, where the villancicos continued to be the preferred form). Carols have a very particular sound, because their chord organization has remained the same as it was in the Middle Ages (Good King Wenceslas is a great example of this "particular sound"). In contrast with the villancicos, carols were usually performed either outside the church or as part of the liturgical services. Today, carols are performed before the Christmas service in some churches, while in others they are part of the service itself. Carols may have themes related to Christmas, but not religious in nature, such as the very famous Jingle Bells and We Wish You a Merry Christmas, which you may hear in Holiday Voices. Vox will also perform two traditional religious-themed carols: Infant Holy, Infant Lowly, based on a Polish melody, and Silent Night, written in Austria by the priest Josef Mohr.

There are also carols composed using old texts but with modern musical language. Such is the case of Benjamin Britten's This little Babe, from his 1942 Ceremony of Carols. Structured as a canon, the rhythmic accompaniment reinforces the idea of Jesus coming to the world not only as a symbol of peace and love, but also as a powerful weapon against evil forces. Britten took the text from "A Galaxy of Shorter Poems," written in Middle English.

From the same source we hear the beautiful setting of There is no Rose by Z. Randall Stroope. This song has a mirror structure. The opening phrase "There is no rose of such virtue", is a haunting melody on a pedal note, to which the principal line keeps referring. This is followed by a second idea "The angels sungen the shepherds to" at a faster pace. The third and last idea is the central part of the piece and its climax "Now leave we all this worldy mirth." The second idea returns, followed by the first one, and closes with a soft alleluia. There are interjections in Latin in the original text, treated in this case in a chant-like manner. This chant idea is most obvious in the final Alleluia sung in unison.

The third setting of an older carol is Bob Chilcott's Sussex Carol. This is presented in the original melody, but with a rhythmic twist. The piece is written in 7/8 measures, a very irregular pattern that gives it a "swing" variant to this well-known song.

Many Perspectives on the Holidays

Roger Bourland's A Fly on the Wall, with text by William McDuff, is the eighth song of the cycle The Crocodile's Christmas Tales and other Odd Stories. The song tells the birth of Jesus from a different point of view, that of a fly who sees a human birth for the first time in its life. In an interview with The Daily Bruin, Bourland says about this work "We just wanted to write a different, new point of view of Christmas. My dad is a minister and I grew up singing all the (traditional) Christmas hymns, so I decided to write some of my own." He also explains of his music: "It's funny. There's humor. It's friendly music - it's not wild and dissonant. It's meant for the family, not highly educated musicians."

Vox will also perform Hanukkah music with a set of three Hanukkah songs: S'vivon, Nerli and Chanukah, oi Chanukah. The origins of this Jewish holiday can be found in the re-dedication of the Temple of Jerusalem following the victory of the Maccabees over the Seleucid Empire. According to the Talmud, there was enough oil to light the Eternal Flame in the Temple for only one day. But, miraculously, the oil burned for eight days, the time it took to prepare and consecrate new oil. The primary Hanukkah ritual is to light a single light for eight days. As a form of beautification of the Mitzvah, the number of lights is increased by one each night. There are several songs associated with Hanukkah, and perhaps the three featured in Holiday Voices are among the most performed. In the arrangement by Charles Baker that Vox will perform, the original melodies are preserved, and the piano is used to illustrate what the song is about. In this way, we will hear the spinning of the dreidel in S'vivon, care for our candle in Nerli and dance happily in Chanukah, oi Chanukah.

Two songs feature themes related to the holidays, but not exactly in typical holiday fashion -- although they are typically Vox! The first is the subtle Under the Holy Bough. This gentle unison setting by Scott Henderson invites us to look into ourselves and improve our relationships with the world in general. The second a four-part work by Elizabeth Alexander (newly arranged by the composer for Vox) based on a poem by Howard Thurman, When the Song of the Angels is Stilled is quite complex. The deep message of Thurman's words is masked by the rhythmic, almost cheerful setting by Alexander. It is perhaps this combination that makes the piece so striking.

And On A Lighter Note

The audience at Holiday Voices will also enjoy a couple of Holiday Favorites - with the special Vox twist. Santa Baby, was recorded for the first time in 1953 by Eartha Kitt, and subsequently by artists as varied as RuPaul, Marilyn Monroe, Kylie Minogue and Miss Piggy. And, now, for one night only - you'll get to be part of the Vox version!

And, you'll get to experience the women of Vox as "orchestra" when they perform Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, part of Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker ballet. Originally conceived as a pas-de deux (a duet) for the Sugar Plum fairy and her Chevalier, it is presented here in an arrangement by Jeff Funk for voices only.

Give Yourself - and Your Friends - the Gift of Vox for the Holidays!

There's no better way to start the holiday season of 2009 than with Vox. Buy your tickets now - and bring your friends!