Nativity

Holy Innocents, 28th December, 2024

Nativity, by John Donne (1572-1631)

Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb,
Now leaves His well-belov’d imprisonment,
There He hath made Himself to His intent
Weak enough, now into the world to come;
But O, for thee, for Him, hath the inn no room?
Yet lay Him in this stall, and from the Orient,
Stars and wise men will travel to prevent
The effect of Herod’s jealous general doom.
Seest thou, my soul, with thy faith’s eyes, how He
Which fills all place, yet none holds Him, doth lie?
Was not His pity towards thee wondrous high,
That would have need to be pitied by thee?
Kiss Him, and with Him into Egypt go,
With His kind mother, who partakes thy woe.

A Christmas Carol

 St John the Evangelist, 27th December 2024

A Christmas Carol, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)

I.

   The Shepherds went their hasty way,
        And found the lowly stable-shed
   Where the Virgin-Mother lay:
        And now they checked their eager tread,
For to the Babe, that at her bosom clung,
A Mother’s song the Virgin-Mother sung.

II.

   They told her how a glorious light,
         Streaming from a heavenly throng,
   Around them shone, suspending night!
         While sweeter than a Mother’s song,
Blest Angels heralded the Saviour’s birth,
Glory to God on high! and Peace on Earth.

III.

   She listened to the tale divine,
         And closer still the Babe she pressed;
   And while she cried, the Babe is mine!
         The milk rushed faster to her breast:
Joy rose within her, like a summer’s morn;
Peace, Peace on Earth! the Prince of Peace is born.

IV.

   Thou Mother of the Prince of Peace,
         Poor, simple, and of low estate!
   That Strife should vanish, Battle cease,
         O why should this thy soul elate?
Sweet Music’s loudest note, the Poet’s story,—
Did’st thou ne’er love to hear of Fame and Glory?

V.

   And is not War a youthful King,
         A stately Hero clad in Mail?
   Beneath his footsteps laurels spring;
         Him Earth’s majestic monarchs hail
Their Friend, their Playmate! and his bold bright eye
Compels the maiden’s love-confessing sigh.

VI.

   “Tell this in some more courtly scene,
         “To maids and youths in robes of state!
   “I am a woman poor and mean,
         “And therefore is my Soul elate.
“War is a ruffian, all with guilt defiled,
“That from the aged Father tears his Child!

VII.

   “A murderous fiend, by fiends adored,
         “He kills the Sire and starves the Son;
   “The Husband kills, and from her board
         “Steals all his Widow’s toil had won;
“Plunders God’s world of beauty; rends away
“All safety from the Night, all comfort from the Day.

VIII.

   “Then wisely is my soul elate,
         “That Strife should vanish, Battle cease:
   “I’m poor and of a low estate,
         “The Mother of the Prince of Peace.
“Joy rises in me, like a summer’s morn:
“Peace, Peace on Earth, the Prince of Peace is born.” 

 

Christ's Nativity

St Stephen, 26th December 2024

Christ's Nativity by Henry Vaughan (1621-1695) 

Awake, glad heart! get up and sing!

It is the birth-day of thy King.

Awake! awake!

The Sun doth shake

Light from his locks, and all the way

Breathing perfumes, doth spice the day.

Awake, awake! hark how th’ wood rings;

Winds whisper, and the busy springs

A concert make;

Awake! awake!

Man is their high-priest, and should rise

To offer up the sacrifice.

I would I were some bird, or star,

Flutt’ring in woods, or lifted far

Above this inn

And road of sin!

Then either star or bird should be

Shining or singing still to thee.

I would I had in my best part

Fit rooms for thee! or that my heart

Were so clean as

Thy manger was!

But I am all filth, and obscene;

Yet, if thou wilt, thou canst make clean.

Sweet Jesu! will then. Let no more

This leper haunt and soil thy door!

Cure him, ease him,

O release him!

And let once more, by mystic birth,

The Lord of life be born in earth.

  

Christmas Greetings

     Thy Nativity, O Christ our God, hath revealed to the world the Light of wisdom: for in it those who worshiped the stars were taught by a star to adore Thee, the Sun of Righteousness, and to know Thee the Dayspring from on high.  Glory be to Thee, O Lord.

Merry Christmas

and

a

Happy and Peaceful

 New Year

 to

 you all

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve, December 24th, 2024

Christmas Eve by Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

Christmas hath a darkness

   Brighter than the blazing noon,

Christmas hath a chillness

   Warmer than the heat of June,

Christmas hath a beauty

   Lovelier than the world can show:

For Christmas bringeth Jesus,

   Brought for us so low.

 

Earth, strike up thy music,

   Birds that sing and bells that ring,

Heaven hath answering music

   For all angels so to sing:

Earth, put on your whitest

   Bridal robe of spotless snow:

Christmas bringeth Jesus,

   Brought for us so low.

Two more Christmas recommendations

      Following on from from my previous post, I'd like to recommend two pieces of Christmas listening, both musical.  Both also very northern.  I'll deal with the simplest first: Vaughan Williams's 'Fantasia on Christmas Carols' of 1912.  I do find this a deeply moving piece.  It is written for baritone soloist, chorus and orchestra.  All the carols are English; the three that are sung are perhaps less well known than the likes of 'O Come all ye faithful' and 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing'.  They are 'The Truth sent from Above', 'Come all ye Worthy Gentleman' and 'On Christmas night all Christians Sing' aka 'The Sussex Carol'.  All had been collected by likes from Vaughan Williams and Cecil Sharp.  The result is the most plangent of my two recommendations.  It has a deep undertow of something close to melancholy, conveying the emptiness and biting cold of mid-winter. 

      The second piece is much more complex, being a reconstruction of a Lutheran Mass for Christmas Morning as it would have been celebrated in a north German city just before the Thirty Years War, from the period known as 'Lutheran Orthodoxy'.  It too shares a sense of the elusive profound silence and emptiness of Christmas in the north. This album, released (fittingly enough) by 'Deutsche Grammophon' of Hamburg, is the work of Paul McCreesh, the Gabrieli Quartet, the Gabrieli Players, and the Boys Choir & congregation of Roskilde Cathedral, Denmark, and it is an extraordinary endeavour, both in terms of scholarship & musicianship; sung in Latin, German, and a little bit of Greek and taking very nearly 1 hr 20 mins to perform - the Introit alone, sung in both German and Latin, takes 7.29 mins.  As originally celebrated such a service, with sermon and Holy Communion, could possibly have taken 3 hrs - the former apparently lasting an hour.  It really would be wrong to think that at the Reformation the new protestant churches all ditched the Latin.  Latin services in Lutheran Nuremberg, for instance, continued until the 1690s. Martin Luther himself said, "in no wise would I like to discontinue the service in the Latin language." Here in England and Wales Latin continued to be used as a liturgical language after the Reformation particularly at the Universities, and the schools of Eton and Winchester.  Prayer Book services in Latin continued in Oxford cathedral until c.1862; and Holy Communion is still celebrated in Latin once at term at the University Church in the city.*  Back now to the music.  The album concentrates on the church music of Michael Praetorius (1571-1621) with a couple of additional instrumental pieces by Heinrich Schutz and Samuel Sheidt.  It is difficult to select a favourite piece among an album of such riches; I have already mentioned the Introit 'Puer Natus in Bethlehem', and I should also like to mention the Gradual Hymn 'Von himmel hoch da komm ich her' and the knockout Recessional 'In Dulci Jubilo'.  The crown must however go Praetorius's 1619 setting of the 'German Sanctus' from Luther's 'Deutsche Messe' of 1526.  Extraordinary.

* (6.5.25) As of 28.4.25 latin Communion, according to the Liber Precum Publicarum of 1560 was celebrated at Keble College, Oxford.  Apparently it's going to to be a regular 'thing'. St James Garlickhythe, in the City of London, will be celebrating Latin Communion on Wednesday 21st May 2025.

'A Ghost Story for Christmas'

 

     Well, here in the UK the terrestrial broadcasters, BBC & ITV, have released their Christmas Day schedules and they are quite simply appalling.  Perhaps the worst I have yet seen.*  They have added a little edge to this post which was to be in the way of a celebration of a remarkable, but relatively short lived television tradition from the 1970s, making it somewhat more of a valediction.  If you haven't seen any of the original series, please make the effort to do so. They are excellent.  You may be able to find them on Youtube, but the whole collection is available from the BFI as a two box set.

     In its original iteration, 'A Ghost Story for Christmas' was broadcast at some point during the Christmas period on BBC1 from 1971 until 1978 with a different drama presented each year.  The director was Lawrence Gordon Clarke, and the producer (from 1973) was Rosemary Hill.  The first five productions were adaptations of work by that master of the ghost story M R James: 'The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral', 'A Warning to the Curious', 'Lost Hearts', 'The Treasure of Abbott Thomas', and finally in 1975 'The Ash Tree'. In the following year perhaps the most atmospheric of the series was aired, the Dickens short story 'The Signalman' in an adaptation by Andrew Davies.

     The final two dramas in the that first iteration were not literary adaptations but written specifically for the series: 'Stigma' in 1977, by Clive Exton and 'The Ice House', 1978, by John Bowen; the latter not directed by Lawrence Gordon Clarke, who had left the BBC in the previous year, but by Derek Lister.  Both have contemporary settings, and are not really ghost stories as such, and whatever their merits they lack the atmosphere of the previous dramas. 
     Those first six dramas, often cited by critics as examples of so-called 'Folk Horror', are quite remarkable for their ability to conjure up a certain atmosphere, a certain sensibility, and to do so out of limited resources. As Gordon Clarke said of them: the 'focus [was] on suggestion. The aim, they say, is to chill rather than shock. Partly because television is not best suited to carrying off big-screen pyrotechnics but mainly because they want to keep faith with the notion of a ghost story in its literary rather than cinematic tradition'.  There was, of course, no CGI in those days, and quite frankly they are all the better for it.  All were shot 16mm film on location, at some time in the midst of an English Autumn.  All these things may seem trivial enough, but they really are not.  God, after all, is in the details.  In addition, the actors are really top-notch, e.g. Denholm Elliot and Bernard Lloyd in 'The Signalman', and excellent use is made of Classical music throughout.  In all, considered filmmaking at its best.  And very northern.

     In 1978/79 James Gordon Clarke went to Yorkshire television and made a very atmospheric adaptation of M R James's 'The Casting of the Runes' set in contemporary Leeds.  It starred Jan Francis and Ian Cuthbertson. (We have encountered Cuthbertson before when discussing Nigel Kneale's 'The Stone Tape'.) I believe it can still be found on 'YouTube'.  It too is well worth the watch.

* To clarify, having now seen the Christmas edition of the 'Radio Times' the BBC1 & ITV1 are indeed terrible.  The BBC2 schedule is a much better bet being a mixture of films, ballet and Morecambe & Wise.  What more could one want?