My most despised Christmas carol? Why, “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” of course. Fun to sing, maybe, but maddening to listen to. Like “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall,” with the beer replaced by wassail and eggnog.
But at least it serves to remind us that the Christmas season does not end on Christmas Day.
Here’s a real curio: a short film I discovered from the U.K. called “On the Twelfth Day” (1955). I came to it by way of the “back door,” as it were, since I’m familiar with the film’s score, by Doreen Carwithen. Some credit Carwithen with having been the first female full-time film composer. In 20 minutes, the short subject demonstrates what a living hell life would be if someone were actually to receive all those gifts. Even worse than having to listening to the actual carol!
Wendy Toye was the film’s director and devised its scenario. She’s also the unfortunate object of her truelove’s munificence.
Also perhaps of interest, the designs are by Ronald Searle. Searle was the creator of the St. Trinian’s School cartoons, which became the basis for the popular film series. With Albert Finney’s “Scrooge” still fresh in everyone’s minds, Searle also designed and did the paintings for that film’s opening credits.
Previously, Toye and Searle collaborated on the stage play “Wild Thyme” (1955) and subsequently a film, “The King’s Breakfast” (1963). For these projects, Searle designed the décor and costumes and painted the sets. For the films, obviously, he also did the credits. Toye, who was also a dancer and choreographer, included in her projects elements of slapstick, dance, and mime.
Watch “On the Twelfth Day” here:
The carol itself is traditional, its origins reaching way back, but it was English composer Frederic Austin who gave us its modern form in 1909. He codified the melody and lyrics, replacing “colly birds” with “calling birds,” and – the masterstroke – extending the cadence of “five go-old rinnnnnnnnngs.” That’s the part everyone really likes to sing, isn’t it?
Now, Austin is not the best-known of English composers (nor is Carwithen, for that matter), but I’ve always been a bit of a musical Anglophile, so I do have some of his concert works in my collection.
Here’s Austin’s “The Sea Venturers,” from 1935:
And Carwithen’s film score:
I know of two other treatments of this insufferable carol that manage to make it somewhat interesting, and I try to play them every year. The first is “Partridge Pie,” by English composer Richard Rodney Bennett. It’s a piano suite, consisting of wholly original music for each of the twelve days. Thankfully, unlike in the carol as it is sung, the material is not repeated from verse to verse.
Book I
Book II
The other is “A Musicological Journey Through ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas,’” by American composer Craig Courtney. Courtney arranges each of the verses in the style of a different composer or historical era, reaching back to Gregorian chant and culminating in a pseudo-Sousa march. It tickles the ear as no recording of the traditional “Twelve Days” ever does. Here’s my preferred recording, with the Bach Choir of Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh Brass. Each of the movements is posted separately, so you have to let the playlist run through to enjoy each of the twelve days.
Let the gratuitous gift-giving continue!
