Gutenbergal angels sing

[calimac]

Last night, we attended vgqn's annual caroling party, as usual including a number of her friends & acquaintances from various local singing venues. This year, everyone we didn't know turned out to be the friends of one Phil, evidently the jonsinger of the local singing community, except that I didn't ask if his name was also Singer. He - the fabled Phil, I mean - appeared himself. This year, also, we fell spontaneously into singing virtually the entire carol book from A to Z.

This year, as well, I was able to present a singable transcription of a little something I came across years ago and have wanted to slip into the Christmas carol repertoire as a ringer (not a bell-ringer, as someone thought when I used the word, but "ringer" in the sense of "a dishonest contestant") ever since.

Any score of "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing" will say that Felix Mendelssohn wrote the music, but in fact that's not what he wrote the music to. Like "The Star-Spangled Banner", "Hark" is a filksong. It was invented when some guy named Cummings decided that Wesley's poem would fit well to this obscure Mendelssohn tune he'd heard somewhere. And a classic was born.

But Cummings didn't remember the tune very well, or something, because the tune of "Hark" as we know it is slightly different from what Mendelssohn actually wrote. The arrangement differs even more: Mendelssohn wrote it for male choir and brass ensemble. And the subject differs the most yet: the original is a hymn in praise of Gutenberg. I found it buried in vol. 15, I think, of Mendelssohn's complete works in score; so far as I can find it's never been recorded. Here's the first verse of what we sang, or tried to:

Vaterland, in deinen Gauen
brach der gold’ne Tag einst an,
Deutschland, deine Völker sah’n
seinen Schimmer niederthauen.
Gutenberg,
der deutsche Mann,
Gutenberg, der deutsche Mann,
zündete die Fackel an,
Gutenberg, der deutsche Mann,
zündete die Fackel an.

(Really crude and probably inaccurate translation, as my command of flowery poetic German beats a computer's, but not by much: Native country, into your provinces the golden day once dawned. Germany, your people saw its glow melting down [or something]. Gutenberg, the German man, ignited the torch.)

And where it says "Gutenberg / der deutsche Mann" the first time, that's where in the standard carol you sing "Joyful all ye nations rise / Join the triumph of the skies," except that as Mendelssohn wrote it you just sing the first three notes (the high D's) of each line, holding the last note while the brass plays the rest of the melody. (Yes, I know "der deutsche Mann" has four syllables. I'm not going to try to explain in words what he does with that. Go find the score.)

Anyway, it was fun to try. Allan Sherman's "Twelve Days of Christmas" also made a brief appearance, and we always sing the Pogo version of "Deck the Halls."

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Huh, that's interesting. I'd love to listen to the original.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

I was a ringer once, in Statesboro. We attended a Christmas party and a handbell choir was there to provide entertainment, and as they were short, and I had musical experience, I was pressed into service. I did well enough they invited me to join the choir. It was tempting, but I'd have had to go to church, so I politely and regretfully declined.

[wild-patience.livejournal.com]

It was Peter, dear, not Phil.

[vgqn.livejournal.com]

What she said (though it doesn't really matter).

Gutenberg was fun! I'll add it to the books for posterity.