Carols Ancient and Modern

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Music

Ancient and Modern

I collect hymnals – the older the better. It’s fascinating to see how musical tastes have changed over the years, and see which hymns were included or excluded.   Language changes and various issues (such as temperance) rise and fall from prominence.

As far as Christmas Carols go, in addition to my Oxford Book of Carols, there are three hymnals that have held my attention.  I actually possess one of these, and I’ve just found copies of the other two online.  I guess that will have to do, if I can’t actually own the physical copies.

The first of these is Hymns Ancient and Modern, and is a general hymnal rather than being specific to Christmas.  For many years it was the primary hymnal of the Church of England, and is a standard reference for hymnology.   Anne Dudley put together an excellent CD of Advent and Christmas music based on tunes from the hymnal and entitled it Ancient and Modern.  I was able to acquire a copy of Ancient and Modern on eBay.  I think mine is the 1916 edition, and it’s a small pocket version with only the words to the hymns – no music (pictured above.)

In the mid-to-late 20th Century there was a revived interest in ancient melodies for worship. I noticed this in our most recent Presbyterian Hymnal, which included more plainsong chants and hymns with ancient origins. These next two hymnals are even older than Hymns Ancient and Modern.

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A Christmas Carol

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Music

Nope, no ghosts this time (that I know of, although I did watch Scrooged this evening.) No, I’ve been spending some time with an old friend – my well-worn copy of The Oxford Book of Carols.

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The Oxford Book of Carols was originally published in 1924, and edited by Percey Dearmer, Martin Shaw, and Ralph Vaughn Williams. It was supposed to be the definitive collection of Christmas Carols. It’s still widely available, as is the New Oxford Book of Carols.

As a young choir director I would check a copy of the book out of the library each year as a reference, and to give me ideas for upcoming Christmas programming. One Christmas my mother-in-law gave me my own copy. Understand that this was in pre-Internet days. You couldn’t just log onto Amazon.com and find a copy. Her neighbor was a retired reference librarian, and was able to track down a copy for me.

So, quick – name your favorite Christmas Carols. You would probably come up with something like this…

Joy to the World
O Come All Ye Faithful
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
Silent Night
Angels We Have Heard on High
Away in a Manger

You might be surprised to find that none of those beloved carols are in there. Some of those titles don’t even fit the narrow definition of “Carol” applied to the songs that are in the collection. To be a supposedly definitive work, there is much that is lacking, as well as some surprising inclusions.

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Rubik’s Music – Part 1

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Music, Weirdness

rubiks-cube

This year mark’s the 30th anniversary of the Rubik’s Cube. I’ve seen and heard lots of references to it recently, and Office Depot has even started using it as one of their advertising logos.

All of this reminiscing brought back memories of my own experiences with the cube, and in particular, a piece of music that I composed based on the cube.

The year was 1981, and the cube was in its heyday. I was a music student at Furman University, and had been studying 20th Century composers and compositional techniques. I had also been spending just about every spare minute trying o solve the blasted cube.

One warm spring afternoon I was in a Furman Singers rehearsal, and we were working on “O Crux” by Knute Nystedt. This particular piece is very dissonant, and doesn’t resolve its intricate harmonies until the very end of the piece. I was drowsy from a late night of working on the cube, so as I semi-dozed through rehearsal, the strains of Nystedt blended with visions of Rubik’s Cube twirling, and a new musical composition popped into my brain.

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Chilly Jocassee Paddling Trip

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Local, Paddling

Since I had already missed a couple of trips, I really wanted to get some paddling in over the Thanksgiving break. I had originally planned to head up to Lake Jocassee on Black Friday, but the weather wasn’t very amenable. Saturday’s weather looked like it was going to be clear, but quite chilly. Despite the cold weather, Chip, Houston, Brian Goess, and I loaded up the boats and headed to the lake.

The plan was to paddle up to Wright Creek Falls, then explore elsewhere as time allowed. We had some time constraints, with football games looming in the evening, so we couldn’t spend all day on the water.

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Bobby Lamb – End of an Era

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Local, Miscellaneous

Bobby Lamb

I planned to do something I hadn’t done in nearly 20 years. I was going to skip Furman’s home game with Georgia Southern on Saturday – the last game of the season and with one of Furman’s main rivals – and go kayaking. Furman hadn’t been playing well this season, and I was just ready for a change. Be careful what you wish for. The change I wanted was much more dramatic than I had anticipated. On Friday, head coach Bobby Lamb resigned. I immediately changed my plans and decided to go to the game.

Bobby Lamb has been associated with Furman for nearly 29 years. My senior year at Furman Bobby was a freshman, taking over as quarterback for the team. He has been with the team in some capacity ever since, as an assistant coach, and for the last nine years as head coach. Unfortunately the last six years or so have not been kind, with Furman not playing the kind of football we saw in 1980’s. There were already grumblings.

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Everything Has a Price

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Entertainment

A couple of years ago ghost hunting was all the rage, and every cable network had to have it’s own ghost show. Ghosts are still popular, but the latest TV craze are the auction shows. At last count, I’ve come across five new shows on the cable channels, some of which looks suspiciously like each other.

I guess the granddaddy of all of these shows was PBS’s Antiques Roadshow, which started out as a BBC show in 1979. People bring in their treasures to see what they are worth. The prices were often inflated, but the idea that someone might have hidden treasure worth tons of money was quite compelling, and that concept seems to have driven the other shows that followed.

Another oldie-but-goodie was Cash in the Attic. Again, this got its start on BBC, and an American version appears on HGTV. In this show the hosts and appraisers help people go through their homes to look for items to put up for auction, usually with some goal in mind. Various antiques in the home are evaluated, until enough are collected to meet that goal.

I often had a problem with this show. I can understand selling off possessions if one needs to downsize. However, selling off family heirlooms to take a trip to Disney or buy a used car always seemed like squandering those funds.

And that brings us to the new crop of shows…

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