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Mediterranean cultures celebrated
the warmth of spring & summer, and happily still do.
The winter feast of Saturnalia was important astrologically
and symbolically, but was only one of a seemingly endless
calendar of pagan festivals, and one that clearly predates
Greco-Roman civilization. Unlike northern lands where crops
came in much earlier, the gifts exchanged could still be
emblematic of the harvest-the much-maligned fruitcake dates
to these festivities, and decorative lights and candles
are still with us.
But then, as now, spring and summer are the times cherished
in art and song. The advent of Christianity only reinforced
this propensity: The events of the Passion and Resurrection
are inextricably linked to Spring, and Easter was and is
the center of the Christian year. Early church fathers,
like Clemens of Alexandria, felt the relatively unimportant
celebration of Jesus' birthday should also be in spring-no
date was ever fixed. The great early competitor to Christianity,
the Sun god faith Mithraism, was popular in the warrior
class. Mithra was born of light and wisdom on December 25th.
When Constantine was converted to Christianity by his mother
Helena, perhaps he felt the maternal role of the story should
be more emphasized. He oversaw the building of the Church
of the Nativity in Bethlehem, and by 336 Christmas was celebrated
in Rome. Pope Julius I settled all disputes in 350, inaugurating
the first direct absorption of another religious tradition
by decreeing the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord on December
25.
Acceptance and adaptation...as Mediterranean culture declines
in the 4th and 5th centuries, the new faith moves North
with those few who kept the light of civilization alive.
The Celts, the Anglo-Saxons, these forest peoples-what of
their faith? Venerable Bede tells us how Augustine, established
as the first Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote how these people
celebrated their Yule, their winter feast: Greenery was
brought indoors, livestock was slaughtered for feasts, bonfires
were lit. Pope Gregory the Great, wise as ever, advised
Augustine "nor let them now sacrifice animals to the
devil, but to the praise of God kill animals for their own
eating, and render thanks to the Giver of all their abundance."
So the Celts who climbed the sacred oak with a golden sickle
on the sixth day of the winter moon to cut the mistletoe
to fall on a white cloak and bring fertility to the worshipper,
find their great-grandchildren kissing under a doorjamb
with the mistletoe tied above.
In like way, the celebration of harvest's end gradually
merged with a Christian ideal. Samhain is given some spooky-spiritual
connotations that the practical farmers of the ancient Celtic
world would probably have scoffed at-any few hours with
an Irish farmer and you get a good idea of just how little
is changed in the Celtic temperament. Then as now, those
who are gone are close at hand, and the spirits of the goodly
dead are invited to join in as the feast is made, the cattle
brought back to winter pasture, thanks given for blessings
of the year and for help in the long winter ahead. Fairies
are abroad in the land, and care must be taken-but do let's
remember that the Celts perfected the brewing of beer, and
that those feasts were smoothed along with plentiful lubrication,
befitting both celebration and storytelling. By the 8th
century the Christianized Celts called those days after
the old New Years' Feast All Hallows, celebrating those
who have passed (those who died for the faith on All Saints,
all those who have gone before on All Souls).
Through all this is the natural affection in the British
Isles for both the green and pleasant land the various invaders
found, and their genuine empathy for the gentler side of
the Christian tale, when a God appears as a tiny child.
Thus it is that the pagan holly and ivy are brought inside
to decorate a manger that is now surrounded by green life
even in the coldest winter; the carol, a round dance with
its call-and-response refrain that once sang of love and
war and spring and drink, becomes by the Middle Ages entirely
about those days from Advent to Epiphany. There is a tendency
to get foggy about all this, especially since the late Romantic
Irish revival. The truth, as always, is much simpler, and
kinder. Goodly people making the best of their way in the
world also make the best of the earth's turning, its indrawn
winter sleep. Our album title comes from one of the songs
on this recording, the wonderful broadside ballad published
by Henry Gosson (fl. 1603-1640). It is the ultimate answer
to any doubters and deep thinkers, and the happiest wish
we can make to you who find this music:
Thus none will allow of solitude
now,
But merrily greet the time,
To make it appeare of all the whole yeare
That this is accounted the prime:
December is seene apparel'd in greene,
And January, fresh as May,
Comes dancing along with a cup and a song
To drive the cold winter away!
I. Harvesthome: The Ripening of the Year
Our first set bids the warm days
farewell. Slieve Gallen Braes is one of the many laments
for having to leave Ireland to seek gainful employment away
from an oppressed land. The beautiful Harvest Home was collected
at the beginning of the last century in a number of Irish
pipe and harp tune books. Abbot's Bromley, often incorrectly
identified with Christmas, is still danced on Wakes Monday
(the Monday that follows the Sunday after Sept. 4th) with
dancers wearing reindeer horns to create a symbolic stag
fight-you can still see this in Staffordshire, as you could
a millennium ago. The protective children's incantation,
Twist Ye, Twine Ye was given its most famous expression
by Sir Walter Scott in Guy Mannering. The Ash Grove evokes
lost love and has been one of the most endearing melodies
from Wales. About Turlough O'Carolan, so much has been written
about the great rediscovery of this Irish harper who lost
his sight to smallpox at age 18, we can only note how this
man who loved good drink and a good story would be completely
at home with the spirit of this recording (we hear Captain
O'Kane, and the planxty, or "tribute" to George
Brabazon).
II. Samhain: The Days Grow Dark
A beautiful air Fire in the Hearth
(c) Sue Richards, opens this set to get the body settled
for the coming cold, and an Irish jig rounds it out. In
between, we have two of the Cantigas, or songs, collected
by Alfonso X, called El Sabio, "The Wise" (1221-1284).
When, during the Albigensian Crusade, the surviving troubadours
came to Spain to seek Alfonso's court as a refuge, he took
the singers and some of their great body of song and translated
the passionate love songs to tell instead of the miracles
and virtues of the Virgin Mary. Opulently illustrated, it
is one of the masterpieces of world culture. Beautifully
in keeping is the Garten Mother's Lullaby, linked to the
birthplace of St. Columba in County Donegal. Columba, one
of those Irish who saved civilization, was first Abbot in
Iona. Sean Donegal is a "deep song" lament for
that same county, affectingly sung by Connie McKenna.
III. Advent: Waiting for the Light
All cultures have lullabies; to
mix them with a sacred context in another happy invention
from Medieval Great Britain. Christ Child Lullaby is from
the Scottish Hebrides, Balloo, Lammy from a 17th century
Scottish ballad sheet, and the Bressay Lullaby may have
been first heard in Shetland. No one admired William Dunbar's
Rorate celi desuper more than C.S. Lewis. He said that it
was "the most lyrical of all English poems-that is,
the hardest of all English poems simply to read, the hardest
not to sing." It is a lyrical journey celebrating the
coming of the Christ Child. The popular French carol Il
est ne ("He is born, the divine child") dates
from the 17th century and the rise of monophonic song at
the court of Louis XIII.
Ding Dong Merrily on High was the "Branle l'officiel"
in Thoinot Arbeau's witty treatise Orchesographie (1588).
G.R. Woodward added the popular text and published it with
an arrangement by Charles Wood in the Cambridge Carol Book
in 1925. Mist Covered Mountains of Home has been claimed
by the Irish, but is the Scottish tune "Chi Mi na Morbheanna,"
although both lands can produce mist aplenty in the winter
hills. Don oiche ud i mbeitheil is a rare Irish Gaelic carol,
"That Night in Bethlehem."
IV. The Twelve Days
The broadside All Hayl to the Days
(now popularly called "Drive the Cold Winter Away")
leads us thematically to the true spirit of these celebrations.
The Scots claim Drunk at Night, Dry in the Morning, although
I would not wish to intervene at any pub where someone made
a counterclaim. Yeats' Song of the Wandering Aengus is one
of the perfect lyrics, and a sublime meditation at any time;
but what better time than at the start of a new year to
think on what we have had, what we have lost, and what we
would truly seek? Sue Richards set the poem to the Northumbrian
tune Gan to the Kye wi' Me. Simple Gifts and Jingle Bells
are both products of New England written within a decade
of each other. The Shaker Elder Joseph Brackett of the Alfred,
Maine community gave us the dance (not hymn) Simple Gifts
in 1848. James Lord Pierpont left Massachusetts for his
brother John's Unitarian ministry in Savannah, Georgia.
There he wrote "a merry little jingle" he copyrighted
in 1857 as "A One-Horse Open Sleigh;" we know
it by its popular name today. Greensleeves, from the time
of Henry VIII, was the subject of the very popular broadside
ballad The old year Now away is fled, and from the early
17th century until the late 19th, that is how we heard this
tune (brightly, and up-tempo!). William Chatterton Dix contributed
to the Victorian habit of adding new lyrics to old tunes
for Christmas (see Ding, Dong Merrily), and published his
version as What Child is This? in 1865. Christ Church Bells
takes us back to the broadside era and one of the great
dance publications of John Playford (the 1690 edition)-and
the Scots indeed get the last word with Bottom of the Punch
Bowl, which the reliable James Stewart Robertson included
in his Athole Collection of Scottish Dance Music in 1884.
ROBERT AUBRY DAVIS is the creator
and host of several on-going series and specials produced
for local and national public radio and television audiences,
most notably Millennium of Music, the longest-running and
most widely-heard program on early music in history. He
is the host of Around Town, the Emmy-Award-winning arts
discussion television program on WETA in Washington, D.C.,
and is currently the Program Director for The Village, the
all-folk channel on XM Satellite Radio.
THE MUSICANS
SUE RICHARDS, Celtic harp.
The evocative power of the Celtic
harp has no greater genius than Sue, called "one of
America's brightest stars" (Dirty Linen folk &
world music magazine). A four-time National Scottish harp
champion, teacher and adjudicator in harp competitions nationwide,
Sue also tours with Ceoltoiri and Ensemble Galilei. Sue's
recordings include: Grey Eyed Morn, Morning Aire, Hazel
Grove; with Ceoltoiri: Silver Apples of the Moon, Celtic
Lace, Women of Ireland; and with Ensemble Galilei: A Winter's
Night, Music in the Great Hall, and Ancient Noels.
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MAGGIE SANSONE, hammered dulcimer.
One of America's finest hammered dulcimer
performers, Maggie brings a unique vision to the music of
the ancient Celts. Featured on CBS-TV "Sunday Morning,
NPR's "All Things Considered," and "The Thistle
& Shamrock". Her recordings include: Celtic Meditations,
A Traveler's Dream, Dance Upon the Shore, Mist & Stone,
Traditions, Sounds of the Season, Sounds of the Season II,
Ancient Noels and A Scottish Christmas. Maggie is founder
and CEO of Maggie's Music, which distributes over 50 recordings
worldwide featuring some of the finest musicians performing
today including Bonnie Rideout, City of Washington Pipe
Band, Hesperus, Al Petteway, Ceoltoiri, and Ensemble Galilei.
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CONNIE MCKENNA, vocals. Irish-American
singer Connie sings in the traditional ''old style"
called Sean Nós. She studied Irish Gaelic at University
College, Galway in Ireland and Irish singing at the Willie
Clancy School in County Clare, Ireland. A WAMMIE winner
for Best Traditional Irish female Vocalist from the Washington
Area Music Association, she is lead singer in the band,
Ceoltoiri. Connie's recordings are: Silver Apples of the
Moon, Celtic Lace and Women of Ireland.
KAREN ASHBROOK, Irish flute, whistle,
hammered dulcimer. Karen is known
for her delicate touch, trademark shimmering lilt and ear
for authentic Irish ornamentation. Irish reviewer John O'Regan
calls her recordings "Celtic music for the mind and
body." Karen's recordings include Celtic Café
(with Paul Oorts), Hills of Erin, Knock on the Door and
recordings with her band Ceoltoiri (see above).
RALPH GORDON, cello. Ralph
performs and teaches in the Washington D.C. area and is
a much sought after freelance musician, who appears on over
80 recordings. His classical training at Manhattan School
of Music provides a technical basis for his playing in many
genres of music including the Celtic music heard on this
recording.
Cover
photo: "Baltersan
Snow" by James Brown. Baltersan is a large
house (not a castle) possibly built as the residence
of Quintin Kennedy, Abbot of Crossgraguel from 1548
to 1564 (the Abbey itself, a half-mile away, dates
from the 13th century). While snow is rare in Ayrshire,
this evocative photograph illustrates the urgent need
to preserve this beautiful structure. For more information
on Baltersan, visit: www.baltersan.com
PRODUCTION CREDITS: Producer-Maggie Sansone,
Maggie's Music; Associate Producer, liner notes-Robert
Aubrey Davis; Production Director, engineer, editing,
mixing-Quinton Roebuck; Mastering-Jon Best, Muddy
Creek Audio, VA; Art Director-Maggie Sansone; Graphic
Artist-Jennifer Johnson; Artist Photos-Irene Young
(S. Richards); Chris Moscatiello (M. Sansone); Richard
Wheaton (C. McKenna, K. Ashbrook); Lauri M. Bridgeforth
(R. Gordon) |
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