Welsh composer Ralph Vaughan Williams composed two major works for Christmas. Neither is neglected, though they haven’t achieved the same level of popularity as the A-list of holiday Art Music. The first is the Fantasia on Christmas Carols, which is on the B-list because the carols selected are not top-40 (perhaps 41-80?)
The second is the oratorio Hodie, which includes biblical texts along with poetry and hymns – not unlike Bach’s own Christmas Oratorio and the cantatas of Protestant Germany. Today I’ve selected the first movement of the oratorio – the movement after which the complete work gets its name. This piece absolutely tickles me, because it is the closest to Leonard Bernstein that Vaughan-Williams’ music ever gets (though it doesn’t get very close …). Vaughan-Williams composed in a very conservative style, so a movement like this with changing dance rhythms and meters is about as wild as he can get. How wild? Like wearing a tuxedo and … unbuttoning your jacket! Or maybe wearing an country suit to a city supper.
December 17 is a day that I get to mentally relive one of my favorite high school memories – Saturnalia! For those of us in Latin Club, this was a day of great celebration. We were excused from class, and would walk around the school shouting “Io Saturnalia!” while pelting underclassmen with candy. It was a day of great learning for all.
Gustav Holst’s most famous piece is undoubtedly The Planets, a multi-movement work which, despite the name, is more astrological than astronomical (think horoscopes or Roman gods). It’s a funny case of the large work titled after heavenly bodies, while the individual movements, like “Saturn – The Bringer of Old Age” bear mythological subtitles.
The music doesn’t tell a specific story, but instead paints a marvelous picture of gods, goddesses, and giant spheres of matter orbiting the sun. The work has practically defined what music about outer space should sound like, and its influence can be heard in any sci-fi or space themed movie.
Today’s piece was selected mainly so I could use that million-dollar pun in the title.
Orchestral instruments notoriously get used in uncreative ways: the trumpets always play the fanfares; the flutes play the part of dancing sprites; the basses always play, well, the bass line. The truth of the matter is, any top-knotch player is capable of a broad range of sounds and styles on his/her instrument. Trumpets can be sweet and lyrical; flutes can be aggressive and grizzly; and basses … well, they really do stick to the bass line, with few exceptions.
So when was the last time you thought, “I want to hear a beautiful instrumental aria … on the Bassoon!” Let me go ahead and guess – never. The bassoon is that bumbling bedpost of an instrument, the one who plays the Grandfather in “Peter and the Wolf“, the one that Stravinsky gave the awkward opening motif in “The Rite of Spring.” Could it really be suitable for a lovely lyric aria? Samuel Coleridge-Taylor thought so! Prepare to fall in love all over again … with the Bassoon!
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