For the past two weeks I have been working on a brief presentation for a community organization that has asked for holiday music. I don't really think there is much need for me to sing holiday music to these folks. There is so much holiday music everywhere you go to shop or conduct business. However, there is music composed for this time of year that people do not often hear. One such piece is the Mother's aria from Amahl and the Night Visitors, a one-act opera composed by Gian Carlo Menotti. In this aria, this character poses the question: "I wonder if rich people know what to do with their gold?"
When we ask a question that begins "I wonder . . ." we usually throw our voices upward in pitch. Menotti does that with the musical line. Then he lets the line descend in a rhythmic, but conversational way. I love singing this line because it seems such a perfect match of music and text. It is just like one might say it, but instead it is sung. It seems just right, and so I love to sing it. Then the next series of questions have very pretty music. "Do they know how to roast sweet corn on the fire?" All of the consonants in that phrase get the articulators popping and crackling much like a fire. "Do they know how to fill a courtyard with doves?" I can't say that I know how to do this, but I imagine it must require spreading seed or breadcrumbs. However, the thought of it is so uplifting! The musical line swoops and swings upward. You can almost imagine yourself in the midst of a huge scene of doves all around. Singing music where the text and the musical line make such intellectual sense makes a piece easy to sing.
This is from the original production from 1951: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diZ36MMdtMA.
Another selection I have chosen is by Respighi, "Nevicata". That Italian word means 'snow flake'. Though it is not holiday music, it is about snow. Again, the composer uses the music to swirl and float calmly. He sets the word "immensa", meaning 'immense', at the top of a line. The first syllable, "im-" is set on the highest note in the phrase, and a shorter note. The double 'm' in Italian gets hummed just a little longer than most, opening to the vowel 'eh' on the syllable "-men-" on the next two notes stepping down. It stretches over those notes making the vision seem "immense". Actually the poet is describing an immense calm. The manner in which a composer sets words and vowels in ways that the music reinforces the meaning of the text simply adds to the fun and easy comprehension of any line of sung music. It is like "the wind beneath your wings".
Here's the prince of song singing it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFivLwIhR9s.
I am going to begin the presentation with a turn of the century American religious song, "The Birthday of a King". It is a fairly well-known song in this part of the south. It is two verses, and is the conventional type where you start the verse low and sweet and end higher and louder. I do not think it is a great song, but it is familiar to many.
The final song in the set is "Every Valley". The text from Isaiah of "every valley shall be exalted and every hill made low" is another version of "the first shall be last and the last made first". The setting of this text in Handel's Messiah is an all-time favorite of mine. However, it is written for a tenor. However, it was set more recently by American composer John Ness Beck. He does a good job of reinforcing the text by use of smooth phrases for the "crooked straight", and choppier music for "the rough places plain". The tune is somewhat commercial sounding but lovely. Even if you have never heard this before, you may find this choral version very pleasing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73xdinTZCHA.
