Christmas Night
Dec. 25th, 2005 11:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
damontAs promised, a less terse (but not too verbose I hope) recap of the weekend.
Yesterday, being Christmas Eve, there was much stress early in the day. I had slept late in order to be awake enough to sing for the late night service, but that left me with very little time in the day and a fair bit to get done. In the end I couldn't find everything I wanted (finishing up the presents) and settled on something else I hoped would be pleasing anyway. Got home, threw the casserole together, put it in the oven, showered, dressed, gathered up the music and everything else, and dashed off to meet![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
blaisedec and nostasia at the latter's mom's place. I was running late, but traffic was not sucky for once and so I wasn't as late getting there as I was leaving home. Piled into one car and headed off to the potluck dinner, which nostasia described as "a pre-church potluck dinner with a pot roast, potatoes, a salad, green bean casserole, foccaccia, and fresh bread on the menu. This was followed by an absolutely wonderful, but very rich, chocolate decadance cake. There was also key lime pie and a berry tort, along with whipped cream and coffee." Then we headed over to the church for pre-service rehearsal, followed by the service.
There comes a time each December when the Christmas season actually starts for me. I had been musing earlier in the day yesterday that this had, so far, been for me the most UN-Christmaslike December I could remember. Well, the season finally started at some point during the anthems-and-carols session that started the service. The program:
"Masters in This Hall" (choir in procession, preceded by kids on various percussion)
"O Little Town of Bethlehem" (singalong carol)
"I Saw Three Ships" (choir)
"Angels We Have Heard on High" (singalong carol)
"Torches" (choir)
"In the Bleak Mid-Winter" (singalong carol)
"O Magnum Mysterium" by Morten Lauridsen (choir)
"It Came upon a Midnight Clear" (singalong carol)
"See Amid the Winter's Snow" (choir)
The Lauridsen was written 20 or so years ago, so it qualifies as "contemporary"... full of tone clusters, though the overall harmonic structure owes an immense debt of inspiration to Randall Thompson's famous "Alleluia". It is *very* pretty, but an immense challenge to sing: I covered a range of two full octaves in the piece, from D above middle C down to the D two octaves below that, and I don't think my part was the most difficult. Nevertheless I'd like to sing it again.
"Winter's Snow" posed a different challenge. I sang this with the W&M Choir and Chorus at a December concert some twenty-odd years ago, at a very unhappy time in my life, except for singing which was a lone bright spot. And I associate this piece not only with that time in my life, but with Frank Lendrim our beloved choir director, who died two and a half years ago. So it took an immense effort on my part to hold myself together enough to sing the piece.
The service itself went very nicely; the carols sung as hymns included "O Come All Ye Faithful", "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing", "Away in a Manger", "Silent Night", and "Joy to the World", with "What Child Is This" held in reserve if Communion ran long (it didn't). We also sang two anthems during the service: Tomas Luis da Victoria's "O Magnum Mysterium" at offertory, and the men doing the SPEBSQSA barbershop arrangement of "Lo How a Rose E'er Blooming" during communion. I had some trouble during "Silent Night" owing to my associations of *that* carol with the W&M December concerts.
I got home from church about 2 am and proceeded to wrap presents until close to 6, then got a few hours of sleep.
We went up to my sister's in Maryland (she lives about halfway between the Virginia family contingent and the Pennsylvania folks) for the day today (Sunday). My parents, my kid sister and her family, my brother-in-law's mother, and my BiL's sister and *her* family were all there as well. Despite the presence of five girls (ranging in age from two to fourteen), it was a very low-stress day, which was very much needed and appreciated by all. My sister was glad to see us all together (except forkillernurd who's spending the holidays with montuos's mother). And now we're back home and it's time for bed. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
Yesterday, being Christmas Eve, there was much stress early in the day. I had slept late in order to be awake enough to sing for the late night service, but that left me with very little time in the day and a fair bit to get done. In the end I couldn't find everything I wanted (finishing up the presents) and settled on something else I hoped would be pleasing anyway. Got home, threw the casserole together, put it in the oven, showered, dressed, gathered up the music and everything else, and dashed off to meet
blaisedec and nostasia at the latter's mom's place. I was running late, but traffic was not sucky for once and so I wasn't as late getting there as I was leaving home. Piled into one car and headed off to the potluck dinner, which nostasia described as "a pre-church potluck dinner with a pot roast, potatoes, a salad, green bean casserole, foccaccia, and fresh bread on the menu. This was followed by an absolutely wonderful, but very rich, chocolate decadance cake. There was also key lime pie and a berry tort, along with whipped cream and coffee." Then we headed over to the church for pre-service rehearsal, followed by the service.There comes a time each December when the Christmas season actually starts for me. I had been musing earlier in the day yesterday that this had, so far, been for me the most UN-Christmaslike December I could remember. Well, the season finally started at some point during the anthems-and-carols session that started the service. The program:
"Masters in This Hall" (choir in procession, preceded by kids on various percussion)
"O Little Town of Bethlehem" (singalong carol)
"I Saw Three Ships" (choir)
"Angels We Have Heard on High" (singalong carol)
"Torches" (choir)
"In the Bleak Mid-Winter" (singalong carol)
"O Magnum Mysterium" by Morten Lauridsen (choir)
"It Came upon a Midnight Clear" (singalong carol)
"See Amid the Winter's Snow" (choir)
The Lauridsen was written 20 or so years ago, so it qualifies as "contemporary"... full of tone clusters, though the overall harmonic structure owes an immense debt of inspiration to Randall Thompson's famous "Alleluia". It is *very* pretty, but an immense challenge to sing: I covered a range of two full octaves in the piece, from D above middle C down to the D two octaves below that, and I don't think my part was the most difficult. Nevertheless I'd like to sing it again.
"Winter's Snow" posed a different challenge. I sang this with the W&M Choir and Chorus at a December concert some twenty-odd years ago, at a very unhappy time in my life, except for singing which was a lone bright spot. And I associate this piece not only with that time in my life, but with Frank Lendrim our beloved choir director, who died two and a half years ago. So it took an immense effort on my part to hold myself together enough to sing the piece.
The service itself went very nicely; the carols sung as hymns included "O Come All Ye Faithful", "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing", "Away in a Manger", "Silent Night", and "Joy to the World", with "What Child Is This" held in reserve if Communion ran long (it didn't). We also sang two anthems during the service: Tomas Luis da Victoria's "O Magnum Mysterium" at offertory, and the men doing the SPEBSQSA barbershop arrangement of "Lo How a Rose E'er Blooming" during communion. I had some trouble during "Silent Night" owing to my associations of *that* carol with the W&M December concerts.
I got home from church about 2 am and proceeded to wrap presents until close to 6, then got a few hours of sleep.
We went up to my sister's in Maryland (she lives about halfway between the Virginia family contingent and the Pennsylvania folks) for the day today (Sunday). My parents, my kid sister and her family, my brother-in-law's mother, and my BiL's sister and *her* family were all there as well. Despite the presence of five girls (ranging in age from two to fourteen), it was a very low-stress day, which was very much needed and appreciated by all. My sister was glad to see us all together (except for
killernurd who's spending the holidays with montuos's mother). And now we're back home and it's time for bed. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
