Out of the mouths of babes

Benjamin Britten; A Ceremony Of Carols; King's College Choir; Stephen Cleobury, conducting

I have an addictive nature. It has plagued me for years. The adage “too much of a good thing” doesn’t register with me very easily. My subconscious can’t make sense of it. A voice cries out in the wilderness, “Amass all of the goodness you can find, in whatever form you can root out, that we may indulge and make that goodness part of ourselves!” Thus, I like food, and I eat too much. I like the Simpsons, The West Wing and Star Trek, and I watch them too much. I like Sudoku, and I play it too much. Thank heaven I have no penchant for drugs or alcohol, otherwise if my life wasn’t a living hell, it would probably be because I was dead.

In certain instances I have instinctively backed away from something that I could foresee as problematic. From the absolute beginning of the craze, I veered away from video games knowing of the expense and the amount of time that it would take away from practicing. Some who know me well have offered that I, of all people, should not take up golf. I can’t imagine getting caught up in golf. But, I also remember saying at one time, “I can’t imagine getting caught up in ‘Star Trek’.” One never knows where he will find and/or apply discipline.

I have about five compositions on my iPod that I have assigned to Category O; O for “Only listen to this piece one time a year.” Have you ever heard music of such profound beauty and industrial strength that it instantly bypasses all of the usual senses in order to completely redress the inner mansion of your soul? It doesn’t happen very often. I have drawn, in the proverbial sand, a very fine line whose parameters boast of an ambiguous nature. Yes, if I hear something that I absolutely and unequivocally love, I want to experience that music as often as possible in order to make its sound, its emotional dynamic, its harmonic language and overall artistic effect part of my personal musical arsenal. But if the music passes “the line”, then I never want that place of bliss, euphoria and penultimate exhilaration to which this music catapults me to ever become ordinary. And so, I allow myself to listen to a recording of such music just once a year, or, maybe, even less frequently than that.

My favorite part of Christmas Eve comes after the dinner, after the games, after the candle lighting, after Silent Night, right before I go to bed … when I listen to Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols. This eleven-movement work for treble voices and harp occupied the composer’s time in 1942 while aboard the cargo ship Axel Johnson en voyage to Britain from the United States. Warning: Do not expect the Christmas carols we all know and love in this collection. It opens (“Procession”) and closes (“Recession”) with the ancient plainsong “Hodie Christus” from the Christmas Vespers, and in between them, Mr. Britten set to music eight ancient texts in archaic Middle English, each concerned with a mysterious aspect of the Christmas story, and each colored with a medieval understanding of God, the world and mankind. The text takes some liberties with scriptural facts, bringing the nativity scene to a freezing English winter. Though the subject matter is religious and the words are reverential to God and the baby Jesus, I would not characterize this presentation as sacred. Though it begins and ends with Catholic text, the passive aspect of the words suggests a more reactionary than participatory reflection of the birth of Christ. We seem to be observing the scene from the perspective of the author of the text.

But as much as I love the narrative aspect of this opus, the music tears me up with its atmospheric slant. When Mr. Britten wants you to feel cold, the temperature is absolutely glacial. With its unfamiliar harmonies and unorthodox melodies, Ceremony of Carols evokes a world quite alien from our lives and times. A Victorian, Dickensian, Oh-Come-All-Ye-Faithful, city sidewalks, gingerbread feeling, or Gap commercial Christmas would confound the folk who inspire this joyful yet somber Yuletide scene. The arrival of Jesus is serious business, indeed.

Mr. Britten’s true genius, though, lies in setting this quasi-liturgy for treble voices; not women, boys. When profound truths gush from the voices of little ones so young, innocent and devoid of the worldly wisdom we prize, the awe and wonder that electrify the air bring power and intense authority to the message proclaimed. Perhaps not quite unlike the arrival of the Savior of the world in the form of a baby born in a manger.

Merry Christmas.

Credits: To everyone who has been reading my blog, for providing insight, correction, supplemental information, recognition and encouragement. My "Thank You" to you is woefully insufficient, yet I offer it to you wholeheartedly. Thank You.