Write your own new holiday carols
- col-lee-elliot-aging-graciously
- December 20, 2023
- 565
I look forward to holiday music each year. It brings warm memories of school concerts, church services, ballets and symphonies. For me, the learning of traditional carols began in elementary school and never ended. I might know every verse of nearly every Christmas song, so it is a jarring shattering of reality when I hear what is being done to that beautiful music today.
In a seeming effort to widen audiences, you’ve heard me say this so many times or maybe to do away with tradition, song “rewriters” have changed the carols we know so well to rap and rock rhythms. They are blared out over our radios and TVs. You haven’t lived until you have heard “Mary Did You Know,” “Silent Night” and “Oh Holy Night” on an electric guitar rap-style.
I find this tormenting. No one has felt the need to change the music of the classical masters like Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, who wrote as far back as the 1700s. Well, maybe Queen did a little. Their efforts remain as unchanged and well-loved today as when they were first written.
I fully realize “The Times They Are a Changin’” and that the music enjoyed by today’s youth is good for them — what they want — but I say write your own new carols and leave the old ones alone. They are fine the way they are. And who knows? We seniors might even get to like some of the new music.
These thoughts were precipitated by my attendance at the Philharmonic Christmas Concert and my participation in Lessons and Carols this past weekend. There are 75 very young children in the Philharmonic chorus. Their behavior and enthusiasm was amazing. Under the direction of Laura Barkett, who sings like an angel and conducts like a pro, these children have learned how to maintain tradition when it is necessary. There was hardly a wriggle to be seen, and they knew the words and rhythms of the carols as they were originally written. Just think, 75 one day gonna be seniors will remember the old songs and maybe continue to sing them to their children.
I believe everyone at Lessons and Carols, an ecumenical choir and instrumental concert, experienced something rare. The final carol of the program, “Oh Come All Ye Faithful,” was sung by seven choirs and the audience and played by a brass ensemble, bell choir, cello, saxophone, guitars, organ and piano.
To say the rafters rang is putting it mildly. In the moments following the last notes, there was total silence and then spontaneous applause. A response to that kind of music is bodily. It is not the excitement of a rhythm or a song you love; it starts at the toes and travels throughout your entire body until you are bursting with joy. I believe it is a rare happening and wish for everyone to experience the feeling at least once in a lifetime.
In our world full of sadness and strife, I wish you a joyous musical holiday, whatever your preference may be.