December 16, 2005

• The Music of Christmas

  

  

  I’ve had a difficult day today.  First, I fell in the kitchen, one
  of those sudden onsets of stumbling and fumbling that are part of this
  damned disease.  Then a little later on it hit me how severe this
  current sudden flareup is, when I realized that due to the brain fog I
  had forgotten to eat breakfast and tend the woodstove when I got
  up.  My blood sugar and the heat in the house are both things I’d
  prefer not to forget.

  Later
  in the day, Greyfox called to ask me to call Cellular One for him
  because he had been unable to retrieve his voicemail messages or to use
  the keypad to respond to automated menus at his bank and his knife
  wholesalers.  After listening to him vent his anger and
  frustration, then spending a lot of time on hold and in conversation
  with a man at their customer care center (sounds a lot nicer than it
  feels), and then waiting for Greyfox’s nightly 9 PM phone call to relay
  to him what the man told me, even now his technical problems remain
  unsolved.  He will need to take his cell phone and go to a pay
  phone tomorrow and try again to get the problem fixed.

  In the midst of that, I learned that someone who took exception to
  something I had written here, who is blocked from commenting directly,
  wasn’t content with blogging her (anonymous/pseudonynomous) heart out
  about the situation.  She went around to people who read and
  comment here, and in vulgar terms “invited” (commanded is more like it)
  them to go read her blog. If you were one who caught the flak meant
  for me, you have my sympathy, and you probably have a tiny clue to why
  I blocked her.  Her issues are really with her brother and not
  with me, but apparently she doesn’t realize that.  She seems to
  believe that I have some mysterious power to compel him to do things
  against his will.  If I’d had that power, I’d have used it to get
  him to stop drinking or to go away and leave me alone, long ago.

  **sighs as she puts that behind her**  However, right now I am
  very glad and grateful that he didn’t listen to me when I tried to make
  him go back to Pennsylvania, or to stay there on any of his visits
  “back home.”  I don’t know if this will make sense to many or any
  of my readers, but now that we’re not living under the same roof,
  Greyfox and I have a great marriage.  He is not a demonstrative
  person except in demonstrations of frustration and rage.  When it
  comes to affection, though, he has ways sometimes of showing it. 
  Occasionally, even, he will put it into words, which are all the more
  precious for their scarcity.

  I
  am also grateful for the Christmas music that has been in the
  background throughout this difficult day.  It has lightened my
  mood immensely.  Yesterday as I worked on the Spirit of Christmas
  blog, I decided to tune my radio to a different station. 
  Ordinarily, I keep it on KSKA, the NPR affiliate in Anchorage, where it
  is news and interviews all day, with high quality Alaska-based
  “magazine” programs like Encounters from KCAW in Sitka and AK
  from APRN, the Alaska Public Radio Network, as well as national
  programs.   Most of their music programming is on weekends,
  and is a mix of mostly folkish and world music that I generally enjoy.

  Thinking about Christmas reminded me that the other radio station I
  often listen to, the one I keep my car radio tuned to, would be playing
  some Christmas tunes in with the smooth jazz programming.  I found
  that station, KNIK “The Breeze,” during my first dark winter in
  Anchorage 32 years ago.  As the tuner slid past its frequency, I
  caught a Chrismas song and stopped there.  At the time, their
  format was “adult contemporary.”  I like their jazzier new format
  better, and I’m glad they didn’t choose to drop the mix of Christmas
  music at this time of year.  Each year, on the day before
  Christmas, they go to all Christmas music, and I’m usually tuned in.

  I am fully aware of why I like Christmas music so much.  My
  motives are complex.  On the one hand, some of the greatest
  composers of all time have created many of my favorites.  On the
  other hand, we’re talking devotional music here ( unless we’re talking Frosty the Snowman or Granny Got Run over by a Reindeer )
  and it was created to uplift the spirit, by those whose spirits were
  focused on the Great Spirit.  On the other hand (I have as many
  rhetorical hands as I need, thank you very much) the tunes I like best
  were the soundtrack to the best days and months of the best years of my
  life:  the Christmases of  my early childhood.

  
  It should come as no surprise, then, that most of my favorites are oldies.  One notable exception to that is The Little Drummer Boy. 
  If you think of that one as an oldie, it just illustrates what an oldie
  I am.  I was already married the first time I heard it. 

  I know that tastes in music differ just as other sorts of taste
  differ.  I have listened to criticism of that song from more than
  one person, when what I was trying to listen to was the song. 
  Being a penurious percussionist myself, I am predisposed to identify
  with the little drummer who has nothing to give but his rhythm. 
  That… and it’s a good rhythm, too.

  I guess my second favorite version of The Little Drummer Boy is Johnny
  Cash’s,
  though I like the duet of Bing Crosby and David Bowie, too.  I’ll
  reveal my true all-time favorite before I’m done here.  See if you
  can guess… no peeking!  It’s Christmastime, “no peeking” is the
  rule.

  
  From among the true classics of Christmas, I have three
  favorites:  O Holy Night, The First Noel, and O Come All Ye
  Faithful.  The first two were on my school chorus’s Christmas
  program when I was in sixth grade.  I missed the program because I
  was ill, and when I came back to school my “friends” told me how
  relieved they and the choral director had been.  I have a voice
  that carries, but what it carries isn’t a tune. 

  The best version I’ve ever heard of O Come All Ye Faithful, wasn’t
  that.  It was Adeste Fideles, the Latin version, sung by some
  choir, maybe the Vienna Boys’ Choir or the Mormon Tabernacle
  Choir.

  Adeste fideles,

  laeti triumphantes,

  Venite, venite in Bethlehem!

  Natum videte,

  Regem angelorum

  Venite adoremus,

  Venite adoremus,

  Venite adoremus

  Dominum.

  I suppose that my favorite among the English versions of that song is
  the one by Frank Sinatra, but there are so many, I’m not sure.  Another Latin favorite of mine is Ave Maria.  I have the duet with Michael Bolton and Placido Domingo, and it give me chills to hear it.

  Music that was popular during my early childhood can really bring back
  fond and happy memories.  Those songs include Bing Crosby’s version of White Christmas, Doris Day singing Mel Torme’s The Christmas Song (written the year I was born), and the Glenn Miller Orchestra doing Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.

  
  The memories conjured by some later tunes are not so sweet but possibly
  more poignant.  The first time I heard Elvis sing Blue Christmas,
  it didn’t sound quite right.  He did it a lot differently than
  Ernest Tubb did.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that. 
  Once I got used to the Elvis version, it became my favorite, though I cry almost every time I hear it.  I
  love every Christmas song Elvis ever recorded.

  There is no doubt in my mind that Willie Nelson’s version of Frosty the Snowman
  is better than the original by Gene Autry, too.  It’s also better
  than Jimmy Durante’s better-known version.  Willie and Elvis can
  do no wrong, as far as I’m concerned.

  I have to say, though, that despite my loving the oldies and having so
  many fond memories associated with them, the Christmas music I most
  enjoy listening to now are by nouveau flamenco guitarist Ottmar Liebert
  and New Age musicians such as Mannheim Steamroller.  It is
  Mannheim Steamroller’s Little Drummer Boy I like best of all.

  What is your favorite Christmas music?

  

  

  On this day last year, I posted The Legend of Santa Claus.
  

  • 4:22 am
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