Good afternoon, and a merry Twelfth Night, Epiphany, or Orthodox Christmas! And what appropriate snowy weather we have in New York today! To coincide with these celebrations, we are happy to present to you our first video from the Many Sounds of Christmas concert at Saint Peter’s Church of Paul Halley’s arrangement of the spiritual “Go Tell it on the Mountain”. Along with the video, we thought we would share a bit about the history of Twelfth Night (after which Shakespeare named his play) and the song itself. In some branches of Christianity, Twelfth Night marks the end of the twelve days of Christmas (don’t worry, we will spare you that song), also known as Christmastide, which begins on Christmas Day with the birth of Jesus and ends with the feast of the Epiphany when the wise men bring gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the infant Jesus. Its origins are in medieval and Tudor England, and marked the end of the whole winter festival of Yuletide, which if you remember from a previous post from a few weeks ago really began with All Hallows Eve, or Halloween. Traditionally, the order of things would be reversed on this night, with royalty becoming peasants and vice versa, and this confusion of order seems to be what inspired Shakespeare to write his Twelfth Night characters. Their revelry, tomfoolery, and confusion of character because of cross-dressing seems to all be based on what the English called the Lord of Misrule. Traditionally, the drink of choice for Twelfth Night was wassail and in many places a cake was baked with a bean or pea inside, and whoever got those pieces were considered king and queen of the night’s festivities. In other places, Christmas wreaths that had been hung during the season contained fruits and would be taken down this night, and the edible fruit consumed. Other traditions have Twelfth Night mark the beginning of the Carnival season. In the traditional religious terms, the Epiphany (an ancient Greek word meaning “to reveal”) was when Jesus was revealed to the world as Christ. In Orthodox traditions, Christmas Eve is celebrated on January 6th, as their tradition dates back to the Julian calendar, which has a difference of 13 days from the Gregorian calendar. Very fitting of either tradition then that the song we bring you today is “Go Tell it on the Mountain.” The text speaks about going forth everywhere to tell that Jesus Christ is born. The song is a spiritual dating from circa the 1860s, and has been arranged and recorded by many artists in the last century and a half. Paul Halley’s arrangement, with close harmonies and jazzy progressions, was a challenging and fun piece for us, and so satisfying with the way that it came together, especially in the very live acoustics of Saint Peter’s Church. We hope that you enjoy it! youtu.be/BC-T8b35kxU The Salvatones also look forward to getting together tonight for a holiday party to celebrate our accomplishments of the season so far and to toast to the exciting things to come. Stay tuned for pictures and updates!
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 19:36:58 +0000