Special Report
Christmas Melodies From Near and Far
There are many good reasons why they've become our favorite things.
In recent years people have started adding Rodgers and Hammerstein's "My Favorite Things" to the Christmas canon. In a way it feels like creeping secularization -- the song doesn't have much to do with Christmas -- but then neither does Jingle Bells when you come right down to it, so why not? Christmas has always been able to incorporate all kinds of local customs without losing its significance.
Last week, Michael Feinstein, a performer of Christmas concerts, pointed out on the New York Times op-ed page that many portions of the Christmas canon have been written by Jewish composers:
If you look at a list of the most popular Christmas songs, you'll find that the writers are disproportionately Jewish: Irving Berlin's "White Christmas," "The Christmas Song" (yes, Mel Tormé was Jewish), "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!" "I'll Be Home for Christmas," "Silver Bells," "Santa Baby," "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "Winter Wonderland" -- perennial, beloved and, mostly, written for the sheet music publishers of Tin Pan Alley….
True enough. It's certainly a tribute to the talents of Jewish composers. But it also says something about the appeal of Christmas even to those who don't completely partake in it. In particular, I've always loved the intro to "White Christmas" (they don't play it very much), which says all anyone would ever want about those poor folk who must spend Christmas in hot climates:
The sun is shining
The grass is green
The orange and palm trees sway.
I've never seen such a day
In Beverly Hills LA.
But it's December the 24th
And I am longing to be up North.I'm dreaming of a White Christmas…
In fact, the Christmas canon as it comes down to us is a beautiful compendium of the 20 centuries that have passed since the events by which we mark our calendar. Christmas carols are generally traced to St. Francis of Assisi, who introduced them after being inspired by preaching to the birds and woodland animals. Many are adapted folk tunes. "Ding Dong Merrily on High" -- one of my favorites - was a medieval dance. (Take a deep breath when you begin the "Glo-oo-oo-oo-ria.") "What Child Is This?" of course is the traditional "Greensleeves" with lyrics written in 1865 by William Chatterton Dix, a 29-year-old insurance company manager who had gone into a deep depression after a near-fatal illness. His composition helped him recover.
"The Twelve Days of Christmas" was first published in 1760 but seems to be French in origin. (We know this because French partridges roosted in trees while English partridges did not.) The song dates from the period when Christmas and present giving was celebrated all the way from December 25 to January 5, also marked in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. (Think of what the department stores could do with that.)
In fact, Christmas has been through many, many permutations over the centuries. Until the Protestant Reformation, most considered it a pagan ritual. Martin Luther became the first man to decorate a Christmas tree. He is often credited with writing "Away in a Manger" as well, but that is apocryphal. The carol first appeared in Philadelphia in 1885 in a Lutheran Evangelical songbook called the Little Children's Book for Schools and Families.
While German Protestants embraced caroling, English Puritans rejected it as too much fun. After Cromwell's fall, however, English Christmas music underwent a spectacular revival when German composer George Frideric Handel followed George I to England and completed The Messiah in 1742. For good measure, he also wrote "Joy to the World." "O Come All Ye Faithful," which is of uncertain origin, appears to have arrived in England in 1785 as "The Portuguese Hymn."
Meanwhile, the Puritans had brought their dour attitudes to the New World and Christmas was not celebrated in Massachusetts until after the Civil War. Instead we owe our holiday customs to the good-hearted German immigrants who populated New York and Pennsylvania.
It was a New Englander, however, James Lord Pierpont, who composed "Jingle Bells," commemorating a sleigh ride he had taken in his youth in New Hampshire. By the time he published it in 1857, however, he had become a church music director in Savannah, Georgia. In the interim, Pierpont had run away to sea, married and then virtually abandoned his wife and children by leaving them with his father to join the California gold rush, failed in the West and written a song about it ("The Sheriff's running after me with pockets full of writs"). His nephew, J.P. Morgan, fared much better.
The Christmas canon exploded in the 19th century, when religious and popular themes converged around European classical music. The French added "The First Noel," and "Angels We Have Heard on High." Although they never quite mastered opera or symphonies (excent for Carmen), they were always great with a melody. "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," written by Protestant reformer Charles Wesley in 1734, was set to the music of Felix Mendelssohn. "O Holy Night," penned by Adolphe Adam (who like Mendelssohn was also Jewish), was banned for many years by the Catholic Church for being "too secular."
Amateurs also played a big part. "O Little Town of Bethlehem" was composed in a field outside Bethlehem on Christmas Eve, 1865 by Philip Brooks, a Philadelphia Episcopal minister. John Hopkins, another American pastor, wrote "We Three Kings" in 1857. The poem "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" was written in 1849 by Edmund Sears, another New England minister, and put to music a year later by Richard Storrs Willis, a New York church organist who had trained under Mendelssohn. "Silent Night," perhaps the best loved of Christmas carols, was dashed off in 1818 by Joseph Mohr, an Austrian priest, who was forced to improvise when the church organ broke down on Christmas Eve.
Most 20th century contributions have been in the popular vein, with movies and show tunes playing their part. "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" was a poem originally written in 1939 by Robert L. May as part of a Montgomery Ward marketing campaign. Ten years later May's brother-in-law, songwriter Johnny Marks, put it to music and Gene Autry recorded it. Marks' Christmas contributions also included "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" for Brenda Lee, "Holly Jolly Christmas" for Burl Ives, and "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day," the last being an adaptation of an 1865 poem written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow upon hearing his son had been wounded in the Civil War.
About the Author
William Tucker is the author of Terrestrial Energy: How Nuclear Power Will Lead the Green Revolution and End America's Energy Odyssey.
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Melvin| 12.24.09 @ 8:23AM
Bahhhh Humbug, damn secularists, atheists or whatever the hell these life hating people want to call themselves nowadays.
You what Christmas is? Whatever the hell you want it to be. To some it is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. To others its the twinkle likes. And like me its a mix of both.
But the biggest impact of Christmas on me is? Memories. Memories of me bugging dad to drag the Christmas lights so we could put them and I would stand outside the house being mesmerized that Santa Clause was going to land on my very roof.
Living in Oregon at the time the whole place was filled up with Christmas trees, so the whole family would walk into the forest and pick out the Leppla Family Christmas tree, and if I had to climb a tree to cut the top out that made it all the better, and we would drag it out and throw it in dad's pickup truck as I sat in the back taking in the smell of Christmas.
Christmas was mom's time to make and bake intestinal treasures worthy of Santa's approval, and it all was filled with enough transfat to make a person drool. Back then we didn't call it transfat, we called it, "boy this is good."
The church, denomination I have long forgotten played Christmas music over Hillsboro as we gazed at the Nativity scene by the Court House as me and my sisters walked to the movies.
Back then being a little kid I didn't realize the religious significance of the Nativity I just like all the lights around it, and the fake camel that had been used so much the poor creature was suffering from camel baldness as the fake hair was falling out.
I couldn't wait to get back home from the movies to see if dad left the Christmas lights on as we walked down our long driveway and I squealed
with delight that he did.
Our driveway was dark and my sisters told me that monsters lurked in the shadows and they would get me if I stepped of the gravel driveway, but I didn't care as long as I saw my twinkle lights.
Today, I still stand outside the house in the cold gazing at the very same strings of Christmas lights that adorned my father's and mother's house when I was a kid. Dad and mom saved every one of them before they died and made me the keeper of the lights.
As my son climbs off the roof of my house because my wife won't let me up there anymore he stands beside me, and Tristan, Andre, Maddox, and Leigh ask in unison, "Grandpa, where is Santa going to land his sleigh?" I point up at the roof as my father did, "Right up there on grandma's and grandpa's roof."
This is one thing that the secularists and atheists don't get. Its the memories you fools, its the memories of tradition, families, food your not supposed to eat, and going to church for my one time a year to sing Christmassy songs with people I don't even know."
As I hold my youngest grandchild as he trying to sing along with his, "Wah, wah, wah to the Christmas music, I close my eyes and thank the man upstairs, for giving me such a wonderful life."
Alan Brooks| 12.24.09 @ 4:11PM
At the very least religion wins by default.
Alan Brooks| 12.24.09 @ 4:16PM
Which would you rather listen to? Silent Night, or Rap music?
Conservative School Counselor| 12.24.09 @ 9:30PM
Silent Night, rap music is a contradiction in terms.
Northern Rebel| 12.24.09 @ 10:13AM
Manheim Steamroller's "Silent Night", never fails to bring a tear to my eye.
Jabberwok| 12.24.09 @ 1:09PM
It is better in the original German as "Stille Nacht."
Pingback| 12.24.09 @ 11:27AM
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R Martin| 12.24.09 @ 1:07PM
Nice bit of research, Mr. Tucker. Did you do that work yourself? My daughter, who has master's degree in French, did not know about the French partridges. Thanks for your effort and have a Merry Christmas.
Margie| 12.24.09 @ 3:05PM
"Meanwhile, the Puritans had brought their dour attitudes to the New World and Christmas was not celebrated in Massachusetts until after the Civil War."
Perhaps these Christians didn't celebrate Christmas as such, but they certainly had no dour attitudes.
Read this wonderful book if you want to see a bit of truth about them. And the truth about Christopher Columbus as well.
"The Light and the Glory" by Peter Marshall.
Dan| 12.24.09 @ 8:46PM
The real story, which the American Spectator is IGNORING, is that Barack Hussein Obama and his family are not attending church tomorrow for Christmas. When can we start calling this Muslim what he is?
Grant| 12.25.09 @ 9:42AM
60% of Israelis when polled express their belief that our president is a Muslim. They are correct. According to shariah, if ones father is a Muslim, one is a Muslim. Period.
No one need point out that his mother's second husband was a Muslim, too. Add to the mix that Grandpa Dunham had that good Commie friend, Frank, too. While it still doesn't make sense (Commies? Muslims? U.S.A. 1960s?), at least the mystery is gone. Bill Ayers and Rev. Wright must have seemed immediately familiar.
Things must have been complicated for young Barack in Indonesia, however. Suharto, an anti-Communist Muslim, came to power, so the larger struggle in Indonesia was between the two sides of his family, as it were.
victor| 12.27.09 @ 7:04PM
You forgot that his step-father Lolo, adopted young Barry so that he could attend muslim schools in Indonesia and that was how he went to Pakistan in 1980. On an Indonesian passport.
PS it also means he is an apostate muslim and subject to death.
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WRJonas | 12.25.09 @ 8:55AM
To hear a wonderful and spirited version of Handels Messiah is a treat which never fails to delight. As the chorus grows and swells the hallelujahs become vocal waves we can imagine vast oceans of spirit angels praising God..... for he shall reign forever and ever ,... hallelujah, hallelujah hallelujah.
Merry Christmas everyone!
Margie| 12.25.09 @ 10:29AM
I agree. Handel's Messiah has to be the most beautiful of them all.
victor| 12.27.09 @ 7:10PM
Here is the link to most likely the best version that is not in the original orchestration, which is wonderful as well, this version is quite magnificent.
Well worth the money. This was aChristmas present for my wife one year.
Bring's tears to one's eyes.
Though I had one boss turn it down one Christmas. Did not like Messiah or Classical for that matter.
http://www.amazon.com/Messiah-.....amp;sr=1-1
Grant| 12.25.09 @ 9:29AM
"Good King Wenceslas" gets my vote. In the later verses, the saint sets a perfect example of confident, manly belief when he tells the page to "Follow me". The good king went on a charity mission, at night, through the cold and snow. Contrasting examples are too numerous to elaborate.
Pingback| 12.25.09 @ 10:03PM
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Sam| 12.26.09 @ 1:46AM
I was raised in Jewish traditions, but I'm not gonna lie- Hannukah songs in no way compare to Christmas songs.
And Alan, FYI- I listen to rap music all the time. But everyone knows Christmas is special and that one puts 50 cent and Lil Wayne off to the side in order to here Christmas music. You can listen to rap music and still have a special place for Christmas music.
And by the way- for all of you wondering, I'm 19 so there might be a generational gap with regards to me listening to rap...
victor| 12.27.09 @ 7:28PM
Not to worry, it's only a phase, you'll grow out of it.
One day you might even listen to Miles, Mozart or Messiah, eh?
cuban pete| 12.27.09 @ 8:06PM
...and Parker and Purcell.
duong| 12.26.09 @ 11:20PM
:D May this New Year bring many opportunities your way, to explore every joy of life and may your resolutions for the days ahead stay firm, turning all your dreams into reality and all your efforts into great achievements. “MERRY CHRISMAST & HAPPY NEW YEAR”
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somnolence| 12.26.09 @ 11:29PM
Handel's Joy To The World puts the repetitious chorus of The Messiah to shame. My condolences to all the world choirs that have to go through that toil and suffering.
victor| 12.27.09 @ 7:31PM
"somnolence" Apt name.
Your big brother "Stupor" couldn't make it?
Somnolence is a state of near-sleep,
It is considered a lesser impairment of consciousness than stupor.
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Margie| 12.27.09 @ 3:59PM
"The LORD GOD Omnipotent reigneth.. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Amen.
:^)
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somnolence| 12.28.09 @ 10:00PM
Ah, but I am awake enought to be personally intolerant of the repetitious "Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah." I do not like repetitive oaths or sentences, or phrases or lieder within any format. At least Handel achieved lyrical clarity with Joy To The World. Somnolence can also imply that you (I) always have one unwavering eye open. I'm so glad that I didn't participate in high school choir over 40 years ago when I was picked by the director as best baritone in the class after an impromptu performance. I eventually would have had to sing that loathsome yuletide abomination.
Radegunda| 12.29.09 @ 9:52PM
One of the very best Christmas melodies is "Mary's Little Boy-Child," which I recently learned was written by Jester Hairston--a name I had never heard before.
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