December 18, 2006

• This, That, and Christmas Music

  It is snowing here now.   The temperature, mid-twenties Fahrenheit, was warm enough that I could just slip on boots and hat and go out without gloves or a coat.  I got a slightly different perspective on the muskeg than any I have ever had before.  There have been times when the ground was dry and I could walk out there, but I’d have needed something to stand on to get this angle.

  Most years, the muskeg dries out during summer.  This year at freeze-up, due to the wet summer we had, there were several feet of water standing out there.  Months of cold have frozen it solid, and the snow cover doesn’t come to my boot tops.  I left the road along the usual snowmachine trail you can see on the left in this picture (sparse snow has kept the recreational snowmobiles away so far this winter) and didn’t encounter any problems until I was on the way back out on my old path through the trees at the right.

  There along the margin of the muskeg among the trees, a thin layer of ice had formed early, and then the water level subsided before the hard freeze came.  At each step along the path, I broke through the thin ice and fell a few inches before hitting the more solid sheet below.  Another factor that made this little walk more of an adventure than I’d anticipated was the wind.  Here among the trees I hadn’t noticed that the snowfall was almost horizontal.  It’s chillier out there than the thermometer suggested.

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  During the two previous countdowns to Christmas, there were some days on which my blogging themes were only peripherally related to the holidays, and other days on which I had separate holiday themes for each year’s entries. 

  On this day in 2004, I took note of the comments I’d received and responded to some of them with a definitive statement of my own religious views.

  In 2005, matters involving my grandchildren and some of their Indigo peers had been monopolizing my consciousness and I was getting ready to blog about that when I realized that I was in the middle of my countdown to Xmas.  Fortuitously, the closing paragraphs of the previous year’s post provided an appropriate opening for my entry on The Price of a New Paradigm, one of the most profound, inspired, and deeply-felt pieces I have ever written.

  I hope you enjoy the images from old Christmas cards as much as I enjoyed my search for them.

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  Tastes vary, and musical taste is no exception to that.  Greyfox, my beloved Old Fart, for example, does not like Christmas music.  In his case, it is not a judgment on the merits of the musicians, the composers or the compositions, it is a reaction to the memories aroused in him by Christmas carols and tunes.  For me, and for my son Doug, the music of Christmas is one of our favorite aspects of the season.

  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 most
  were the soundtrack to the happiest days and months of the most trouble-free 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 catchy 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.  It was Adeste Fideles, the Latin version, sung by a
  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, it is hard to choose.  Another Latin favorite of mine is Ave Maria.  I have the duet with Michael Bolton and Placido Domingo, and it gives 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 to me.  He sang it a lot differently than
  Ernest Tubb had done.  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
  like every Christmas song Elvis ever recorded.

  I like Willie Nelson’s version of Frosty the Snowman
  better than the original by Gene Autry, too.  I enjoy it much more
  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 enjoying 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?

  

  

  • 7:19 pm
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