Christmas Eve

December 24, 2015 at 12:00 pm

Did you ever hear a piece and think, I know this tune, but these aren’t the words I’m used to?

 

Marc-Antoine Charpentier‘s Messe de Minuit (Midnight Mass for Christmas) is a French baroque mass which uses Christmas Carols that would have been recognized by any French person in the 17th / 18th century. The idea of singing different words to familiar tunes was by no means a new idea, and is a practice that continues today (for Americans, the most famous example of this is our national anthem, whose original words were for an English club for musicians – that is to say, drunken amateur musicians.)
Louis_XIV,_King_of_France,_after_Lefebvre_-_Les_collections_du_château_de_Versailles

French fashion … yeah …

Anyway, whether or not you recognize any of these French carols, the music is quite catchy, largely because of its origin as secular song. Charpentier, like a good Frenchman of the old monarchy of puffy wigs and silly shoes, makes exquisite, elegant work out of everyday melodies.

Merry Christmas!

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