Celebrating the season with music, dance – and the Tooty Ta song!
For years, I’ve been a great fan of The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. First held on Christmas Eve of 1918, this is a comparatively new tradition at Cambridge University – which this year has been celebrating the eight hundredth anniversary of its founding. (Yes, you read that right – 800!!)
The Chapel of King’s College is one of the chief architectural glories of England.
Here is how the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols begins:
Additional selections can be viewed here.
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The haunting song “I Wonder As I Wander” has a fascinating history; click here to read about it. Fredericka von Stade sings it in this excerpt from a 1991 Carnegie Hall concert. She is followed by Kathleen Battle, who sings “Mary Had a Baby.”
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Here is our favorite Christmas music in the classical repertoire: Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. It is here performed by the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists, led by Sir John Eliot Gardner:
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The Nutcracker ballet has become an integral part of most Christmas celebrations. Its history is recounted in this video:
Here is “the Dance of the Mirlitons” in a performance by the Kirov (now the Mariinsky Theatre):
And here is a rather astonishing, seemingly Cossack-inspired version of the Russian dance , choreographed by Alex Kalinin:
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Finally, this has nothing directly to do with the holidays – except to remind us to cherish the children!
June Horner said,
December 28, 2009 at 2:19 pm
GOOD STUFF ! Thanks for all the delightful links…including Pre-K “Tooty Ta’ song..