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The Hallelujah Chorus
The Nashville Symphony and the Nashville Symphony Chorus gather onstage moments before a performance of Händel’s Messiah, December 18, 2016, Schermerhorn Symphony Center, Nashville
Part of a series of articles on
Preparing a School Winter Solstice Performance
This past week the Nashville Symphony performed our annual string of December Messiah concerts. An annual event featuring a different conductor and vision for the performance of this masterwork each year, it is remarkable to me how resilient Händel’s Messiah is, and how much the community here at the symphony -as well as the larger surrounding community of Music City – looks forward to it every year. It’s one of those monuments of the repertoire that has become part of the collective consciousness.
This year’s performance with guest conductor Christopher Warren-Green brought a historically-informed perspective to the performance, with brisk tempi and the incorporation of a theorbist who doubled on baroque guitar to the continuo section. I was thrilled to hear how excited our musicians were about Messiah this year in conversations I had with them (or overheard) during rehearsals. Sitting in the balcony on Sunday afternoon for the final matinee performance, the enthusiasm of the musicians and the audience was palpable. In the exhilaration following the concert I found myself thinking a lot about this remarkable piece of music, and especially one movement in particular – the unique and absolutely one-of-a-kind Hallelujah Chorus – and why and how it occupies such a singular place in our musical culture.
The Feast of Stephen
Part of a series of articles on
Preparing a School Winter Solstice Performance
On December 8, 2006 – ten years ago today – my students at Linden Corner School in Nashville presented a winter solstice celebration for the school community called The Feast of Stephen.
The Feast of Stephen incorporated copious music as well as dance and theatrical elements, and every student from grades 3-8 was a performer. Students participated as singers, instrumentalists, actors, dancers, created props and costumes – preparing for this event consumed most of my time in October and November of 2006, and as the night of the show came near the anticipation and excitement among the children, parents, and myself was palpable.
Here is a description of The Feast of Stephen: an example of a winter solstice performance with elementary and middle school students that incorporates many of the elements described in this series of articles. Included are the original scripts of both The Feast of Stephen and the Linden Corner School Mummer’s Play, a copy of the original program, and a video of the performance.
We Come To Show Activity
illustration ©2016 Veronika Gadjosova
Producing a Student Mummer’s Play
Part of a series of articles on
Preparing a School Winter Solstice Performance
The student mummer’s play presents the music teacher or choir director with a unique and wonderful element to program as part of the annual winter solstice performance: a short comical play that imparts the message of the season, with deep historical roots – featuring your students in all of the roles. Here are some tips and guidelines to help you pull this wonderful little drama together.
Nashville School of the Arts Mummer’s Play
illustration ©2016 Veronika Gadjosova
Part of a series of articles on
Preparing a School Winter Solstice Performance
Nashville School of the Arts Mummer’s Play
compiled by Walter Bitner from original sources
and from an original play by Walter Bitner & Jody Kruskal, 1995
Cast:
Fool
Father Christmas
Johnny Jack
Hobby Horse
Dragon
Mayor
Saint George
Doctor
Townspeople
* * *
Fool
Room, room, make room,
NSA friends and families all!
Pray, give us room to rhyme!
We come to show activity
In this glorious wintertime!
Activity of youth!
Activity of age!
Such activity as you’ve never seen on stage.
Fieldston Outdoors Mummer’s Play
illustration ©2016 Veronika Gadjosova
Part of a series of articles on
Preparing a School Winter Solstice Performance
Fieldston Outdoors Mummer’s Play
by Walter Bitner & Jody Kruskal, 1995
Cast:
Fool
Johnny Jack
Mayor
Dragon
Saint George
Hobby Horse
Doctor
Townspeople
* * *
Fool
(Sweeping the stage)
Room, room, make room, Fieldston campers all!
Pray, give us room to rhyme!
Our play we wish to share with you
In this glorious summertime!
So enter, Johnny Jack I say!
And tell us, what are we doing here today? (more…)
In Comes I
illustration ©2016 Veronika Gadjosova
The Student Mummer’s Play
Part of a series of articles on
Preparing a School Winter Solstice Performance
The climactic feature of my student winter solstice performance was a traditional English mummer’s play, featuring students in all of the roles. I first saw mummer’s plays at Christmas Revels productions in New York City in the early 1990s – in fact they are the only mummer’s plays I have seen (performed live) besides the ones I produced with my students. I don’t think that this tradition is very well known in the United States, and I enjoyed introducing it to my students and their families.
In Dulci Jubilo
the opening of In dulci jubilo, Piæ Cantiones, 1582
Part of a series of articles on
Preparing a School Winter Solstice Performance
In dulci jubilo is a famous medieval Christmas carol. It is a macaronic carol (i.e. the text is in a mixture of languages): the original text alternates between German and Latin. The words are attributed to the German mystic (and student of Meister Eckhart) Heinrich Seuse (1295 – 1366), and describes his vision of singing angels dancing with him.
It is one of our oldest, loveliest, and most important carols. The lilting, singsongy, exuberant melody and the relative ease with which they were able to learn it made it popular with my students of all ages – from elementary through high school. Although not a piece I included as an annual repeating feature of Winter Solstice performances, I would program In dulci jubilo every few years, and most of my students sang or played it in a Winter Solstice production at some point.
Personent Hodie
Part of a series of articles on
Preparing a School Winter Solstice Performance
Personent Hodie is a medieval Christmas carol. The form in which it comes down to us was first published in Piæ Cantiones, a collection of medieval Latin songs that were sung at the cathedral school in Turku (Finland). It was compiled by Jaakko Suomalainen, a Finnish clergyman, and published in 1582. The carol’s melody is very similar to a hymn found in a German manuscript from 1360, and it is assumed that Personent Hodie dates from the mid-14th century.
Christmas in July
Preparing a Winter Solstice Celebration For Your Students
For many people, the idea of Christmas in July is something of a spoof or a stunt – stores have sales or bars have happy hour specials, that sort of thing. When I took a brief hiatus from teaching in the late 1990s and ran the CD store at Barnes & Noble in Clearwater, on July mornings before the store opened I would sometimes play The Klezmonauts’ Oy to the World! – a raucous high-energy collection of Klezmer versions of traditional Christmas carols – to begin the day with good humor and fun.
But for many music teachers, summer time is the season to plan curriculum for the school year to come, and for years, Christmas in July to me meant: the beginning of half of each year spent planning, preparing, and executing the fall semester. In several schools I taught at, this inevitably culminated in a grand holiday performance that included all my students, usually held in the beginning of December and inevitably including anywhere from a fair amount to a veritable cornucopia of holiday-themed music and other forms of celebration.
The Boar’s Head Carol.
posing with the Boar’s Head before a Tastes & Sounds of the Season performance, Nashville School of the Arts, 2012 ~ photo by Brooke Semar
This is the first holiday season in years that I have not spent consumed by the preparations and execution of a big school performance. Over the last 25 years I directed many of these, with students of all grade levels K-12. In fact, for much of my adult life, I have spent most of each fall listening to, arranging, teaching, and rehearsing Christmas and holiday music – beginning as early as August in some years.
However, in the last few months when I found myself reminiscing about it, I realized that it was already far too late to write anything that would be of any immediate use or interest to choir directors and elementary or middle school music teachers who may read this – most initial planning for these extravaganzas happens in the summer.
I decided to put off writing in earnest about my experiences producing these performances – and my thoughts on how and why to do so – until next summer, when it will hopefully be more useful. But so as not to gloss over the whole issue without any consideration at all, we will content ourselves with a single post this season about a carol whose performance became a hallowed and beloved tradition for so many of my students over the years. I am talking about, of course, The Boar’s Head Carol.
Walter Bitner 