With the bright sunny sky overhead and the heat of July permeating throughout the city of Los Angeles, I’m contemplating Christmas. Many choruses are beginning to plan their upcoming holiday concert now, so I decided to feature a newly published work by a new YRM writer, Seattle-based David Hahn. Tirlee! Tirlo! is a jubilant Christmas carol for mixed chorus a cappella. The text is from 15th century England, and the music is original. This piece is a wonderful example of how contemporary musical settings can bring such unique layers of meaning and expression to centuries-old texts.
When asked for some special insights about the piece, Hahn shared the following words:
The image of the three Kings visiting the manger and delivering their rich gifts is well represented in text and iconography. Tirlee! Tirlo! shows what the lowly shepherds had to offer the new-born Christ child: the spirited sounds of their pipes. The lyrics depict the joy which the shepherds felt as they witnessed the happy events and signs surrounding the birth of Christ. This is a song of celebration and the brief chorus following each verse mimes the pipes of the merry shepherds as they mark the day.
I am a scholar of renaissance and medieval music and find the most inspired vocal music–both sacred and secular–from those periods of music history. Consequently, for the Christmas carol Tirlee! Tirlo!, I set a text from a 15th-century England found in Bodleian Library at Oxford University. I set it in a way that the music would be compelling and fun to sing while remaining accessible for amateurs.
To see how the piece begins and ends, just click on the links to download score excerpts as PDFs.
Steve Milloy is one of YRM’s most popular arrangers. It’s because he always brings a little something extra to everything he does… there’s typically some kind of twist that one may not expect. Children, Go Where I Send Thee is a perfect example of his exceptional talents as an arranger. A traditional African-American spiritual, this piece gives a count-down not unlike The Twelve Days of Christmas, where each number has a specific Biblical reference. It’s a piece meant for Christmas because the “one” is the “little bitty baby born in Bethlehem.”
Steve’s extremely clever arrangement was inspired by 40’s big band sounds, most notably Woody Herman’s Four Brothers in which a quartet is featured in front of the band. So, if you’ve think you’ve heard pretty much all the stylistic settings of African-American spirituals possible… you better hold on until you’ve heard this arrangement! It begins with a bang with a fast big band swing, and the energy is non-stop until the very end.
Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) was an English poet whose words touched not only upon the spiritual (she was a strong high-church Anglican… so much so that she turned down two suitors due to religious differences, breaking her heart in the process), but also on physical beauty and the sublime in nature.
Jerald Thomas Hawhee has set two of her poems as Christmas carols, In the Bleak Midwinter and Love Came Down At Christmas with original music. The composer himself writes himself about his concept of these works available together in Two Rossetti Carols:
I’ve always liked Christina Rossetti’s simple, understated use of imagery. There’s a kind of home-spun quality to the poetry that makes it very immediate and personal, and I tried to convey something of this hearth-like warmth in my settings. Especially in “In the Bleak Midwinter” the harmonies are dense and quite closely written in order to evoke contrasting colors/feelings of isolation and warmth, exultation and humility. Each verse represents a variation on the same theme. The piece begins in a low–almost cramped–register and slowly, verse by verse, different voices take up the theme in their own idiomatic fashion, culminating in the song of the angels; the women (divided into four parts) soaring high into the stratosphere. The final verse brings us down to earth again to look inward and “turn all these things over in our hearts.”
The setting of “Love Came Down At Christmas” is simpler and more straightforward. The contrast between the introspective, personal nature of the holiday versus collective/community worship is highlighted by the use of an alto soloist (who introduces the theme) and the full choir which then takes up the theme and expands upon it. I revised the piece in 2000 to include a modulated section for a solo quartet to play on this dichotomy, create greater contrast and coloristic interest.
Two Rossetti Carols: You can view the first four pages of In the Bleak Midwinter (for SSAATTBB chorus a cappella) by clicking here, and the first three pages of Love Came Down At Christmas (for SATB chorus a cappella) by clicking here.
Amid the roses Mary sits and rocks her Jesus child,
While amid the tree tops sighs the breeze so warm and mild…
It almost seems standard to include a Christmas lullaby on most holiday concerts. And rather than turn to the typical tried and true repertoire, why not consider something different this year? Published originally as a vocal solo in 1912, Max Reger’s evocative lullaby The Virgin’s Slumber Song, Op. 76, No. 52, has been arranged for soprano or tenor solo, men’s chorus, harp and strings by Larry Moore. A piano-vocal score is also available. Choruses have the option of singing either the original German text by Martin Boelitz, or the English translation by Edward Teschemacher.
This song is a tender allegretto piece, full of the beautifully voiced harmonies for which Larry Moore is so well-known. He’s taken Reger’s wonderful solo lullaby and reinvented it in a masterful way!
