Christmas Song Research Articles

Прецедентные имена советских государственных деятелей в поэтических текстах Т. Ю. Кибирова

The purpose of the study is to reveal the peculiarities of use and the functioning norms of the precedent names of Soviet state leaders and politicians in the poetic texts of T. Yu. Kibirov. The poem “K. U. Chernenko’s Life” (1988) and the collections “The Christmas Song of a Lodger” (1986), “A Stilyaga’s Songs” (1986), “Three Epistles” (1987-1988), “It’s Time to Think about the Soul. A Timely Book” (2014-2015) are analyzed. The scientific novelty of the study is accounted for by the fact that precedent names are defined and classified in the poetic works of T. Yu. Kibirov. The functions of these precedent names are determined in the author’s poetic speech. The transformation of the original onyms in comparison with the author’s variants is studied. As the result, it is established that precedent names in the poetic texts of T. Yu. Kibirov are based on the primary sources of the Soviet state and used by the poet as explicit biographic references to a certain figure. This fact allows actualizing the ideological attitudes associated with a particular onym. In most cases, precedent names are used without any transformation in the text, but the cases of changing the original form are identified. The original sources of precedent onyms encompass a broad time period from 1910 to 1980.

"A Very English Superstar": John Rutter, Popular Classical Music, and Transnational Conservatism since the 1970s

Abstract: Since the 1980s it has largely gone unnoticed how the British composer, conductor, and music entrepreneur John Rutter has become a leading figure in popular music—successful on the global music market, popular in the English-speaking world, and regularly at the top of the classical music charts with his Christmas song compositions. Rutter embodies precisely the opposite of commercial pop culture: he is the antitype of a pop star, he succeeds with sacred music, he addresses the middle class and the bourgeoisie, and he personifies family values, community spirit, and the preservation of tradition. Using the example of Rutter, the author demonstrates the importance of conservative pop cultures for the emergence and development of a transnational conservatism in Europe and North America since the 1970s. The article reveals the interplay between nationalization and transnationalization in conservatism, and points out the variety of forms and contexts in which conservative dispositions can appear in popular musical cultures. They offer opportunities for politicization, but can also remain effective purely in the cultural sphere. Rutter's sound worlds clearly transcend English cathedrals and college chapels.

Arkihuolesi kaikki heitä?

The melody of the well-known Christmas song Joululaulu op. 20b n:o 5 “Arkihuolesi kaikki heitä” (1916) by Leevi Madetoja has rarely been questioned, even though there are two later autographic variants, one from Suvivesper (1924) and the other from the composer’s own arrangement of the song for mixed choir (1944). The editor of Leevi Madetoja’s Solo Songs and Duets (Fennica Gehrman, 2013), Kimmo Tammivaara, made the controversial decision to alter the melody in bar 14 of Joululaulu to make it correspond with the later versions. Which one of the variants is “right”? Is it even possible to find a definite answer to this question? From the music philological point of view the answer is clear. Looking at the later variants, there is no reason to doubt the original melody. The question of why Madetoja’s arrangement for mixed choir differs from the original is more complex, and the answer might lie in the composer’s alcoholism and life circumstances in the 1940s. The question of the composer’s ability to work during his final years raises philosophical and ethical issues, with necessary implications for the new critical editions of his works. The composer’s “final intentions” may not necessarily have been his best intentions.

The effects of empathy on support for Christmas music performance in public schools

PurposeDespite an ever-diversifying student population, it is still commonplace for US public schools to present Christmas concerts. These concerts can force minority students to choose between their own religious convictions and school participation. For some students, participation in public-school Christmas concerts can damage their personal identity and assimilate them into ways of being that are not their own. This study aims to test a method for teaching preservice teachers to empathize with minority students.Design/methodology/approachUsing the framework of action research, the study followed a one-group pretest-posttest design. Participants (N = 19), all of whom identified as some kind of Christian, were asked to perform a concert featuring Satanic Worship prayers and a children’s Christmas song. This intervention was meant to induce empathy for religious minority students who feel uncomfortable performing Christmas songs because they are antithetical to their own faiths. Participants’ perceptions of public-school Christmas music performance was measured before and after the intervention.FindingsThe intervention effectively increased empathy for minority students. As a result, participants expressed altered teaching philosophies that were inclusive of religious minority perspectives.Originality/valueThis study demonstrates the effectiveness of empathy-fostering interventions as tools for teaching teachers to work with diverse student populations. The intervention tested in this study is of the researcher’s original design.

Predictors of Hearing Electronic Voice Phenomena in Random Noise: Schizotypy, Fantasy Proneness, and Paranormal Beliefs

This study used a modified White Christmas task to examine reports of electronic voice phenomena (EVP) within random noise. Following familiarization with the concept of EVP, 107 participants listened to an audio track combining white and pink noise. Instructions directed participants to press a keyboard button to indicate if they heard EVP. At the end of the track, participants provided an overall confidence rating of EVP perception. Thirty-nine participants (36%) reported the presence of EVP. Comparisons between EVP experiencers vs. non-experiencers on cognitive-perceptual (schizotypy, hallucinations, and fantasy proneness) and paranormal belief measures (general and haunting) revealed no significant differences. A path analysis indicated that belief in haunting mediated the relations between paranormal belief and hallucination proneness with EVP outcomes (number and confidence). However, fantasy proneness and schizotypy did not have significant relations with EVP. Results were consistent with previous findings, where participants imagine hearing the famous White Christmas song. Within this study, a non-trivial minority of participants experienced EVP as a form of belief congruent hallucination. These findings support the notion that anomalous beliefs provide a framework for structuring unusual cognitions and perceptions.

Лексико-граматичні особливості відтворення словосполучень з колірним компонентом в українських перекладах оповідання Чарльза Діккенса "Різдвяна пісня в прозі"

The article attempts to analyze current Ukrainian versions of the translation of Charles Dickens’s story "Christmas song in prose" in order to study the adequacy of the reproduction of lexical-grammatical transformations at the level of word combinations with a colour-naming component in the Ukrainian translations. Among the lexical transformations there is the replacement of the word for another lexical-semantic variant, the omission of color-naming, the specification of the lexical unit by  introducing additional words in the translation for a more detailed expression of the semantics of color. The most frequent lexical transformation was the use of the descriptive translation of color-naming due to the lack of an analog in the Ukrainian language. Among the grammatical ones are transformations of the morphological and syntactic nature, the differences in the structure of the word combination, the replacement of the order of words, the grammatical connection of words in the word combination, the replacement of use of color-naming in the preposition to the post position, in order to provide a greater euphony and to achieve the adequacy of translation. The most common is the replacement of the order of words in word-combinations with a color-naming component, which is explained by different schemes of creating word combinations in the compared languages.

History of the carol “Raduitesia vsi liudie” from the 17th to the 20th centuries

Spiritual song-carol “Raduitesia vsi liudie (Rejoice all people)” appeared in the 17th century. It was recorded in a handwritten form and chronologically it was one of the first Christmas songs on the Ukrainian lands. The area of its widening was the Western Ukrainian lands: from Lemkivshchyna to Lviv and Galician Podilia (contemporary Ternopil region). Already in the 17th century the spiritual song came to the Moscow land through the Ukrainian settlers, where was recorded in collection of songs, which were the first known in these territories. But it did not spread in the “foreign” lands, and at the same time it has gained popularity in Ukraine.On the example of this Christmas song it is possible to trace a creative synthesis of the local Ukrainian tradition with Western influence in melody, rhythm, and song intonations, which became the disclosure of the general tendency of the development of Ukrainian culture during the European Baroque. In the 18th century and at the beginning of the 20th century the carol “Raduitesia vsi liudie” was distributed in the lists, in the editions, and, finally, in printed form. In the text of the carol there were transformations, new melodies and the musical processes with which it was performed. The “live” character of the carol is evidenced by musical experiments carried out by contemporary performers. Well-known composers and arrangers create new melodies and rhythms of the old spiritual song. Musical arrangement of the carol were made by well-known Galician composers of the end of the 19th and first half of the 20th century Josyp Koshakivets and Ostap Nyzhankivsky. Modern Ukrainian singer Ivan Navi recently performed a carol accompanied by a double bass in a rare modern performance. An old carol is getting a second breath, it is performed not only in Ukraine but also in other countries of our region (Russia, Poland) and around the world.Keywords: spiritual song, carol “Raduitesia vsi liudie (Rejoice all people)”, history of music, the Lviv Epiphany Brotherhood

‘Hauntingly beautiful’

Sal McKeown describes how schools were delighted to be part of a special Christmas song, focusing on the World War One Christmas truce in 1914.

I Wonder as I Wander: The Life of John Jacob Niles (review)

AMERICAN FOLK Wonder as Wander: The Life of John Jacob Niles. By Ron Pen. Lexing ton: University Press of Kentucky, 2010. [xv, 371 p. ISBN 9780813125978. $35.] Illustrations, notes, bibliography, discography, index. John Jacob was one of those liminal characters so often found throughout the history of American music, difficult to define in academic terms and almost as difficult to pin down as a personality. Probably best known today as the composer of the Christmas song I Wonder as Wander, was a true polymath: singer, composer, arranger, writer, raconteur, performer, aviator, inventor, farmer, ballad hunter, and entrepreneur. An inspiration to musicians as diverse as Eleanor Steber, Arnold Schoenberg, and Bob Dylan, inhabited a musical space that was certainly beyond category. As Dylan remarked in his own memoirs (quoted by Pen): Niles was non-traditional, but he sang traditional songs. A Mephistophelean character out of Carolina [sic], he hammered away at some harplike instrument and sang in a bone chilling soprano voice. was eerie and illogical, terrifically intense and gave you goosebumps (p. 281). Ron Pen's longawaited, engagingly written, and wellresearched biography is as close as we are likely to come in beginning to understand this eccentric, exasperating, influential, and immensely gifted individual. Pen, a professor of music and director of the John Jacob Center for American Music at the University of Kentucky, is certainly well placed to utilize the plethora of sources documenting Niles's life and work. He has been involved with this subject for some twenty years of his own life and his efforts have paid off mightily. He proves himself to be a scrupulous scholar, demonstrating a wonderful ability to craft a clearly written, interesting narrative out of a huge number of disparate manuscripts, publications, and other sources. And the Uni - versity Press of Kentucky should be congratulated in producing a well-made, attractive volume with full scholarly apparatus and (mostly) excellent plates and illustrations. Born in Kentucky, the state where he lived most of his life, John Jacob began his musical training early, and by his teens he had already developed interests in both classical and folk repertories. During this time he began collecting folk songs from traditional singers in his state, and by his early twenties had covered quite a bit of the eastern part of Kentucky. Without recording equipment, was forced to transcribe by hand the songs he heard. However, was always interested in making his transcriptions performable in a modern setting, more often than not providing accompaniments and melodic variations that sometimes made the songs into more his own compositions than into an accurate representation of his informants' performances. Pen details the fact that this has engendered criticism from folklorists and ethnomusicologists, but was not able, in a narrative such as this, to explore this issue in a philosophically detailed way. do not criticize him for this, but mention it only in the hope of spurring more discussion on the issue for future critics and researchers. Indeed, the issue of representing other cultures is something with which anthropology and ethnomusicology, as fields, have always struggled, and a more detailed case study of a figure like would be very welcome. …

Cost analysis: the acquisition of the items listed in a popular Christmas song

PurposeThis paper aims to cost the acquisition of the items listed in a popular Christmas song.Design/methodology/approachA humorous approach is taken.FindingsIt was found that there was a significant increase in costs from 2005 to 2006.Research limitations/implicationsThe issue is limited by lack of serious research or methodology. It implies an increase in cost of luxury items that is significantly larger than the CPI.Originality/valueThe paper poses use of costing analysis to present a humorous finding.

Silent Night, Holy Night: A Song for the World (review)

Reviewed by: Silent Night, Holy Night: A Song for the World Elizabeth Bush Thuswaldner, Werner Silent Night, Holy Night: A Song for the World; by Werner Thuswaldner and Patricia Crampton; illus. by Robert Ingpen. Minedition/Penguin, 200540p ISBN 0-698-40032-1$16.99 M 7-10 yrs A broken church organ, a simple composition sung to guitar accompaniment at midnight Mass, soldiers who call their own unauthorized Christmas truce under the influence of a beloved Christmas song—many children are familiar with the stories that surround the famous carol. Thuswaldner overembellishes the basics with a poorly integrated look at the beleaguered population of nineteenth century Oberndorf, Austria, and with heavy, florid prose exacerbated by what would appear to be the puzzling consequence of a missing line of text: "Millions of people know the melody, some know the verses, but very few are aware of more than a grace and blessed consolation of beyond the carol." There's a bit about seasonal flooding and an unnamed war, a tad about Joseph Mohr and Franz Gruber, and abundant breathless musing on the salutary effect of the hymn on its listeners and singers. Ingpen provides illustrations of war, misery, and romanticized village life in hazy paintings, often obscured by snow, that unfortunately recall cheap greeting [End Page 203] cards as well as Old Masters. Extensive Christmas collections could justify inclusion of this title, but Margaret Hodges' Silent Night (BCCB 12/97) remains the selection of choice. Copyright © 2005 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

20—Mississippi

FICTION 20-Mississippi Ron Day Come in Comefurther in. What? The man stopped and cocked his head, listening for the direction of the voice. Must've imagined it he said, realizing he'd not seen anyone in a while now, but he was sure he'd heard someone up ahead. Hiram Couch had been following the whisper for a while now. That wasn't what he started off following, though. It was a wheedledee he'd heard. He could recollect the last time he'd heard one "wood thrush," she called it, and it had been at her burying. The Couches had a cemetery right close by the church; her people had their own graveyard and she wanted to be by her mam. Hiram remembered walking up here with his oldest girl, Sarah, and her young'uns, and as he was resting a little while Sarah's boys covered up the casket, he had heard the wheedle-dee sing. It lit right on the branch of a blackgum beside the grave. I'd forgot that was a blackgum! he said, and looked around to see if he could see it now. If he could spot a big blackgum, big, because it had already been a right smart sized tree when they buried Martha Sue and that had been fourteen years ago. Damn! He'd been trying to remember when she'd died! He guessed that being here so close to the graveyard must have helped him remember a few things. He remembered that Brother Carnes had sung "Brightest and Best," even if it was a Christmas song, but Martha Sue always said she wanted it sung at her burying. About the time Brother Carnes and Sister Miracle had finished, that was when Hiram heard the bird and saw it light in the blackgum near the edge of the graveyard. That graveyard was on the side of the hill. It must be a little further in he realized, and turned to see which hill it might be. He couldn't see too far, but the ground was rising just ahead of him and as he moved in that direction (had to hurry, he remembered; he'd been headed somewhere) he thought he could hear it again. Farther in...comefarther in. Ron Day is a librarian at the Pineville, Kentucky, Public Library. His work has appeared in Appalachian Heritage several times in the last decade. 87 He couldn't say exactly where it was coming from, and he still couldn't see anyblackgums. There was abig stand ofbeech right across that little creek, and a lot of hemlock going up the hill a way, but he thought he must be close because he could smell apples. There was an old orchard right forgainst the hill, and the graveyard right above it, he thought, and he could picture it clear as a bell. They were June apples and weren't much good, but one would taste pretty good about now. Lord, he was tired. He hadn't walked this far in a long time, but he'd rest a little right up ahead, and maybe if Martha Sue was at home (and her daddy wasn't) he'd pick him an apple or two and they'd set under that apple tree and— No. Wait. Martha Sue was dead. Ha rm further in. Funny that whoever he was hearing sounded kinda like her though. That was what had thrown him. He just wished they'd step out from the trees and quit teasing him like this. He couldn't traipse all over the damn mountain. Or maybe he could. Hiram sat on a log right near where the stream forked and ran down toward the road. No, the road was over there, but Hiram had barely sat downbefore he felt like he could go on further and didn't need to rest so much as he'd thought. He stood up again and started to set off, thinking he mightwhistle a little to keep his rhythmup. He used to do that when he plowed. "Wildwood Flower." "Wayfaring Stranger." But as he began to whistle he found he had no breath after all, and...

Tracking Down the Elusive Christmas Song

ABSTRACT Locating accurate historical data on Christmas songs can be problematic, as can be finding the text or a recording of obscure Christmas songs. This essay discusses the situation, and offers some practical advice in resolving the difficulties.

A Christmas tale

It was Christmas Eve and I was alone. Like most people, I was drinking quite heavily and giving my liver a good kicking with glasses of whiskey. I wasn’t much of a whiskey fan but I needed something a bit harsher on the tongue than my regular favourite of vodka and coca cola or amaretto and cranberry juice. The radio blasted out every Christmas song you could imagine and in my drunken state I was singing along with them horribly. Most of them, I only knew a few words but it didn’t stop me.

Polish Christmas Carols and Their Cultural Context

The carol is one of the keys unlocking the door to Polish culture, Polish customs, and perhaps even to the Polish mentality.' A carol is a Christmas song and, at the same time, something much more. It refers to a large body of themes connected with singing these songs, with understanding them, and with the feelings they evoke. These themes are expressed in many different ways, in multicode: through words and music, sonic language and activities, and through textual, situational, and religious contexts. Carolling is the name given to this whole rich cultural phenomenon. Despite numerous changes in Polish customs in recent years, the phenomenon continues to have a significant cultural position both in rural areas and in the cities, in contemporary culture in Poland, and also, it seems, among emigrants. Studies of customs carried out in Warsaw in the mid-70s show that even young people in urban centers have, to some extent, kept up the tradition of carolling (Konorowska). In the southeastern part of Poland, very old forms of ritual carolling have survived-forms which ethnographers and folklorists had not known about until very recently. What makes Polish carolling so vital? Briefly speaking, this is the result of a fortunate fusion of seemingly unrelated forms and subjects: religious and secular, national and universal, elements inherited from the distant past and elements which look far ahead, anticipating an order yet to come. The old Polish name for the carol-symfonia (symphony)-can be metaphorically applied to the whole carolling tradition as a cultural phenomenon. Its inner, dominating tendency is harmony. The carol seeks some hidden unity beyond the limits of forms of expression, models of culture, environmental traditions, national differences, or historical periods. As the foundation of this unity, the carol presents Christian values and the Good News of the birth of God as Man. Let us have a

Trinitas, unitas, deitas – a trope for the Sanctus of mass

The melody for the verses beginning “Trinitas, Unitas, Deitas” has so far been published only from three French sources of the 13th century. Amedee Gastoue gave the melody in the course of his essay ‘Les anciens chants liturgiques des Églises d'Apt et du Comtat’; his transcription was based on the manuscript Apt 6 (No. du fonds 1), a mass-antiphoner of the 12th century used at the church of St.Pierre in Apt, with additions in various hands on the unfoliated leaves after folio CXII at the end of the manuscript, which is where we find Trinitas, Unitas, Deitas, between a troped Kyrie and a Christmas song. Henri Villetard (1907) and Wulf Arlt (1970) published the melody as part of their respective editions and commentaries for the New Year's offices of Sens and Beauvais, from the manuscripts Sens 46 and London, B.L., Egerton 2615, that is, from two sources of the early 13th century whose contents are related, and which may be seen as recensions of a 12th-century exemplar no longer extant.

An Echo of the Servius Commentary in a Christmas Song around 1400

While searching for traces of Virgilian echoes in medieval Latin poetry, I came upon the following unusual Christmas song from Bohemia, recorded between ca. 1410 and 1420 in a manuscript of the Abbey of Hohenfurth:1. En aetas iam aurea incipit vigere Regnaque saturnea revolvuntur vere,2. Parvulus dum nascitur ex intemerata Virgine, quae pariens mansit illibata.3. Sibyllinis versibus hic fuit praedictus, Quod Maro commemorat, nec est sermo fictus.4. Utrique ergo psallite, Matri, nato canite pie resonantes.5. Tibi Deus pater grates, Qui in figura per vates filium spopondisti;6. Atque tibi sacrum flamen, Qui nobis consolamen obumbrando contulisti.7. R° Narrando poetice, Intelligendo mystice, is est Saloninus, Vera sapientia, filius divinus.

Song of the Tally-ho Horn

Out on the wintry night is borne The Christmas song of the tally-ho horn: Wind, wind, clear and kind O ver the snowy shocks of corn, O ver the pine trees blowing. Now through the ancient covered bridge, Built when our forebears topped the ridge, And forded the river That swept below, Now mute in the grasp of Winter, Now silent beyond ,all flowing. Rocking the coach from side to side, The trunks on the top must slip and slide. W ind, wind , the tally-ho horn Over the snow fields blowing. Cracking his whip from his lofty perch, The coachman shouts and the old wheels lurch; H is gay red scarf streams out behind himA danger sign that does not bind him! In through the gate and under the arch They swing and rattle, they canter and march. The curlin g song of the tally-horn Along the spacious drive-way borne, And what excitement! The old coach door Swings wide for the guests who are travel sore; And the stately group on the pillared porch Press forward to greet them with high-held torch. Now dear Aunt Susan with voice like a spinnet D eclares her grandchild as 'big as a minute'! And Uncle Simon, rotund and ruddy, Escorts Rebecca, whose dress is a studyHer silken paniers and gay poke bonnet Flash here and there with pink roses on it; And why do Uncle Simon's boots H ave tops as red as carrot roots? And why does Uncle Simon's cane Get him along with an air profane? a Tally-ho horn, you can surely tell Why the pillars are wound with Christmas holly, And the mistletoe hung for J acob and M ollyW ind, wind, clear and kind O ver the snowy shocks of cornOver the pine trees blowing!

The Meter of the Popular Ballad

In the history of English metrics the verse of the popular ballad occupies a strategic position. From it one may look backward toward Anglo-Saxon verse, and forward toward many developments of modern times. This investigation has been conceived in the belief that solution of some problems of ballad metrics not only will be of value in connection with the ballads, but also will open a new line of approach for the study of other verse, both more ancient and more modern. The principles here worked out will be found applicable, I believe, to popular verse in general; it is impossible, however, to cover the whole field, and the present investigation has accordingly been confined to the material in Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads, as the best-known, most readily available, and on the whole most authoritative collection. At the same time no effort has been made to scrutinize very carefully the canon. The battle of the ballads is not our battle. Trojan and Tyrian are alike to the metrist. Be a poem Christmas carol, song, border ballad, minstrel ballad, or ballad par excellence, there is no necessary peculiarity of its meter, and the evidence here presented will go to show that as a whole Child's material is indeed reducible to a single metrical norm. The few exceptional cases will be pointed out in their places, but in general examples can be drawn indiscriminately from any of the different types.

Extra Supplement: Lo! First on Earth, Christmas Bells and a Christmas Song of Praise

Extra Supplement: Lo! First on Earth, Christmas Bells and a Christmas Song of Praise