Let It Snow!

As Christmas fast approaches, many of us wish for a holiday with snow (especially those of us in the South, where such an event is rare indeed).  I find myself thinking more and more about songs that include “snow” as part of the overall theme.   My favorite secular song is Irving Berlin’s White Christmas.  It is a wonderfully sentimental song and was a tremendous hit with our armed forces when it was first introduced during the Second World War.  Our young men and women, whether serving in the Pacific or in Europe, were reminded of home, family, and what they were fighting to protect when they heard the words by that great American songwriter, Irving Berlin:

I’m dreaming of a white Christmas

just like the ones I used to know.

Where the treetops glisten and children listen

to hear sleigh bells in the snow.

I’m dreaming of a white Christmas

with every Christmas card I write.

May your days be merry and bright,

and may all your Christmases be white.

Many of my favorite carols also introduce the subject of snow.  Consider the exquisite poem by Christina Rossetti, set beautifully to music by Gustav Holst, as well as by Harold Darke.  The piece is In the Bleak Midwinter:

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,

earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;

snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,

in the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Still, Still, Still is another piece which never fails to move me.  My church choir did a Mack Wilberg setting of this lovely little lullaby at its recent Christmas concerts.

Still, still, still,

One can hear the falling snow.

For all is hushed, the world is sleeping,

Holy Star its vigil keeping.

Still, still, still,

One can hear the falling snow.

I’m sure you have some favorite Christmas/Holiday “snow” selections.  How about sharing them in this blog.  You may even find that your suggestion is included in one of my future concerts!

The Great American Songbook

The Great American Songbook is a very loosely defined creation that attempts to represent some of the best songs of the 20^th Century.  Drawn primarily from the Broadway theatre, Hollywood musicals, and popular song, selections included in the Songbook are usually from the 1920s to the early 1960s, and are an important part of the repertoire of jazz musicians, who describe such songs simply as “jazz standards.”

Some of the composers and lyricists most commonly associated with the Great American Songbook are Irving Berlin, Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer, Lorenz Hart, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, Jerome Kern, George and Ira Gershwin, and Duke Ellington.   Performers of the past and the present who have recognized the wealth of material found in the Songbook include such notables as Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Mel Torme, Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Aretha Franklin, Rod Stewart, and Michael Feinstein.  

Most of the songs in the Great American Songbook are written in “verse-chorus” form.  The verse is a musical introduction that is typically of a free musical structure, with speech-like rhythms and a non-metrical delivery.  This leads to the chorus, which is recognized as the more central part of the song, sometimes even being the only part of the song that is performed.  The subject matter of most of the songs is love, in all its varieties.

Several of my all time favorites are “My Romance” by Rodgers and Hart, “Embraceable You” by George and Ira Gershwin, and “I’ll Be Seeing You” by Kahal and Fain.  What are your favorites?

Moving from Johannes Brahms to Irving Berlin

My chorus recently completed a memorable performance of A German Requiem by Johannes Brahms.  An amazing 125 voice chorus, two exceptional vocal soloists, and an excellent 43 piece orchestra (comprised primarily of members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra) combined in performing one of the greatest musical compositions ever created.  So, one might say, where do we go from there?  Since The Michael O’Neal Singers is an ensemble which prides itself on performing a wide repertoire, perhaps it should not come as a surprise that we transitioned rather smoothly the next week into rehearsals of music from “The Great American Songbook,” otherwise known as popular or jazz standards, especially from the decades of the 30s, 40s. and 50s.

So, after weeks of concentrating on the sublime and challenging qualities of Brahms, we now find ourselves immersed in the songs of Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Johnny Mercer, Richard Rodgers and others.  While I enjoy the change of pace this music offers, I do think it is important to approach these composers with a serious appreciation and respect for what they have added to the American musical landscape.  Popular music can touch lives in profound ways and it is the insensitive serious musician who fails to recognize that fact.  Therefore, it is my hope that our May 13 performance of Ballads, Blues, and Broadway will remind us of music’s enormous capacity to enrich lives.