Only nine days until Christmas. Are you feeling the heat yet?
Just remember, the Christmas season isn’t all about the gifts. It’s also about the birth of…
BEETHOVEN!
That’s right, Beethoven’s birthday is widely celebrated on today’s date. There’s no actual record of when he was born, but we know he was baptized on December 17, 1770. So it’s likely today is the anniversary of his nativity.
As you sweat it out on line at the post office or checkout counter, consider amusing yourself by contemplating what you might get classical music’s most iconic composer.
Here’s a literal wish list scrawled by Beethoven. Among the desired items: soap, a mousetrap, a knife, and a metronome. In 2011, the list sold at auction for over $73,000.
Happy birthday, Ludwig Van, with angry sugar plums dancing in your head!
More about the contents – and the context – of Beethoven’s list:
While Beethoven inevitably hogs the limelight on his birthday every December 16, I think composer Rodion Shchedrin deserves at least a mention this year, as he’s just turned 90. If you know Shchedrin at all, it’s probably for his audacious reworking of Bizet themes into his “Carmen Suite” (1967) for strings and percussion.
He also wrote a series of concertos for orchestra. The most notorious of these is called “Naughty Limericks” (1963). My favorite is probably the Concerto for Orchestra No. 3 (1989), subtitled “Old Russian Circus Music.”
The liturgical work “The Sealed Angel” (1988), for choir and flute, is based on a story by Nikolay Leskov. If you’re interested in hearing the whole thing, the individual movements are posted separately here, in the form of a YouTube playlist.
Finally, Shchedrin plays Rachmaninoff with Yevgeny Kissin and Daniil Trifanov – piano six-hands!
If you’re curious as to how to pronounce Shchedrin’s last name, as a classical music announcer I learned that the “shch” should be said as in “freSH CHeese” (i.e. “SH-CHedrin”).
Happy birthday, Rodion Shchedrin!
PHOTO: The composer with his late wife, Bolshoi ballerina Maya Plisetskaya, for whom he frequently composed. (The “Carmen Suite” was written for her.) Plisetskaya died in 2015 at the age of 89.
Hurry up and put on your jammies and brush your teeth, and we’ll allow you to stay up for our chat about “The Littlest Angel” (1969) on the next “Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner.”
Johnny Whitaker of “Family Affair,” “Sigmund and the Sea Monsters,” and “Tom Sawyer” fame teams up with always loveable Fred Gwynne, forever saddled with Herman Munster, to headline this Hallmark Hall of Fame holiday special based on the popular children’s book by Charles Tazewell.
Shades of “Amahl and the Night Visitors” (also about a shepherd boy who winds up offering Baby Jesus the humblest of gifts, only to find favor in the eyes of the Lord), “The Littlest Angel” proves a diverting mix of music and kitsch. There are “state-of-the-art” video tape chroma key studio effects (with plenty of bleed-through and visible wires galore) and a starry supporting cast that includes Cab Calloway, Tony Randall, Connie Stevens, John McGiver, George Rose, James Coco, and E.G. Marshall – one of the “12 Angry Men” (which explains a lot) – as God.
If you can suppress your cynicism, the songs do have an endearing quality. The music and lyrics are by Lan O’Kun, brother-in-law of Lamb Chop ventriloquist Shari Lewis, for whom he churned out hundreds of scripts (and won an Emmy). O’Kun also took several game cracks at the Broadway musical. Over the course of his long career, he also worked with Barbra Streisand, Frank Sinatra, Glen Campbell, Duke Ellington, and Peggy Lee.
Watching the show last night, I couldn’t help but chuckle at the splashier musical numbers, which reminded me of something out of Mel Brooks. Wouldn’t you know it, the end credits revealed that the arrangements and orchestrations were by Brooks’ longtime collaborator, John Morris.
We’ll explore all angles of “The Littlest Angel” on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner. Devil’s food cake will be served in the comments section, when we livestream on Facebook, YouTube, etc., this Friday evening at 7:30 EST!
After generations as one of the most hypnotic of Christmas songs, “Carol of the Bells” regains the political significance of its first appearance here in the United States 100 years ago.
This most indelible of carols was originally conceived by Mykola Leontovych (1877-1921) as “Shchedryk,” a New Year’s carol, in 1914. Traditionally, it is sung in Ukraine on the eve of the Julian New Year (January 13). The title is derived from the Ukrainian word for “bountiful.” The original text is about a swallow that foretells great fortune with the arrival of spring:
A little swallow flew
and started to twitter,
to summon the master:
“Come out, come out, O master,
look at the sheep pen,
there the ewes have yeaned
and the lambkins have been born
Your goods are great,
you will have a lot of money.
If not money, then chaff:
you have a dark-eyebrowed wife.”
Shchedryk, shchedryk, a shchedrivka,
A little swallow flew.
The song was popularized in the West, following a performance at Carnegie Hall in October 1922 by the Ukrainian Republic Cappella (a.k.a. Ukrainian National Chorus ), a group that Leontovych co-founded. The concert was the first stop of a North American tour, designed to assert Ukraine’s independence and affirm its cultural identity. Two months later, Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union.
American choral master Peter Wilhousky, himself of Ukrainian stock, was in the Carnegie Hall audience. He later outfitted the melody with English lyrics to create “Carol of the Bells.”
Ironically, Christmas secured not only Leontovych’s immortality, but also his doom. He happened to be visiting his parents’ house at Christmas in 1921, when a traveler came to the door and requested lodging for the night. The stranger was put up in a room with Leontovych. At sunrise, Leontovych was shot and the family robbed.
The murder may have been politically motivated. As noted, the Ukrainian Republic Cappella was active in promoting Ukrainian independence, and Leontovych had made his share of enemies. His eldest daughter recalled him saying that he had documents that would allow him to leave the country for Romania. He claimed those papers had been rifled through. Also, the stranger turned out to be an agent of the secret police.
“Carol of the Bells” was brought back to Carnegie Hall earlier this month, performed by the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus of North America and Ukrainian Shchedryk Children’s Choir, as part of a program to support Ukraine in its latest struggle.
Peace on earth and good will toward men is an ongoing project.
PHOTOS: St. Sophia Cathedral tower bells, Kyiv; Ukrainian National Chorus on tour in 1922 (one of the stops, Princeton University); Ukrainian Shchedryk Children’s Choir at Carnegie Hall in 2022
Even at Christmas, it seems, some people just want to get your goat.
How else to explain the continued desire to see one city’s oversized symbol of Christmas cheer go up in flames?
The Gävle Goat, basically a 40-foot version of those miniature tree ornaments you sometimes see, made of straw and bound by red ribbon, is erected annually in Castle Square, Gävle, Sweden. The Goat is constructed over a period of two days, just in time for Advent.
Then begins an unsanctioned game of cat-and-mouse, with the authorities attempting to guard the Goat, while everyone else attempts to light it off. If the Goat is burned to the ground before December 13 (today, St. Lucia’s Day), it is rebuilt.
This is all highly illegal, by the way. Neither the police nor the local businesses that rely on the Goat to draw tourists are terribly happy when there’s an immolation.
Nevertheless, over the years, the Goat has been damaged by fireworks, rammed by a Volvo, stomped to pieces, fired upon with flaming arrows (launched by vandals dressed as Santa and gingerbread men), and torched by a hapless American, who was egged-on by Swedes who convinced him that doing so was an accepted holiday tradition. (It’s not; he was fined $14,700 and spent a month in jail.) In 2010, there was even a failed attempt to abduct the Goat by helicopter.
In 2016, the Big Goat was set ablaze within hours of its construction. The catastrophe was timed to coincide with a security guard’s bathroom break. Then for four years, the Big Goat stood unmolested, the longest it has survived. A rival Natural Science Club Goat (only a kid by comparison), also located in Castle Square, did get singed a couple of times, but was not destroyed.
Last year, the streak ended, with both goats going up in flames. A 40-year-old man was implicated in the burning of the larger goat. He was sentenced to six months in prison and fined 109,000 Swedish kronor (10,691.93 U.S. dollars). That’s a lot of goat feed.
The Gävle Goat has been a Christmas staple since 1966, but its origins reach back into the shadowy past of Northern Europe, when wacky pagan traditions enlivened midwinter celebrations. The Yule Goat may have derived from the worship of Thor. The God of Thunder’s chariot was drawn by two goats. The Christmas version of the goat was led about by Saint Nicholas, possibly as a symbol of the subjugation of evil.
Whatever the goat’s function, it’s been around for hundreds of years. A time there was when rowdy young men in costumes would travel door to door to enact plays and demand gifts. One of these assumed the role of the ornery Yule Goat. For this reason, Scandinavians sometimes refer to the practice of wassailing as “going Yule Goat.”
In the 19th century, the Goat’s role was transformed into a giver of gifts. Though the Goat has since been replaced by a humanoid Father Christmas, in Finland he is still referred to by the name Joulupukki (literally Yule Goat).
The second, smaller goat appeared in Gävle in 1986. Well, it’s not always smaller. There were a couple of dust-ups early on as it attempted to usurp the Guinness title for “Largest Yule Goat.” But usually it’s smaller, at around 7-feet. The larger Goat is sponsored by the Southern Merchants. The little goat was added by the Natural Science Club of the School of Vasa. For the most part, the goats peacefully coexist.
In Sweden, Norway, and parts of Finland, St. Lucia’s Day is celebrated as a festival of lights, falling as it does so close to the winter solstice. Girls dress in white, wear a red sash around their waists (to signify Lucy’s martyrdom), carry a palm, and, most strikingly, wear a crown or wreath of candles on their heads.
St. Lucy makes an appearance today on the Goat’s Twitter feed. “I’ll make sure to watch from a safe distance,” writes the Goat. “I’m not really a fan of all the lit candles.”
You’ll find more information and a complete history of the Gävle Goat’s destruction here:
5 responses