“Danny Boy” and His Descendants–A Musical Journey through Time

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Where did the tune originate?

The tune used for “Danny Boy” is a true folk melody, originally called “Derry Air,” because it was first written down in County Derry, Ireland, in the town of Limavady. Once Ireland became an official part of Britain, the county was renamed “Londonderry,” with the choice of name somewhat determined by one’s political views. But whatever the name of the county, the origin story seems fairly straightforward: Jame Ross, a collector of Irish traditional folk music, heard a harpist (or a fiddler, depending on the version, and usually identified as blind) performing in the street outside her house and rushed out to copy down the tune he was playing. Unfortunately, she neglected to get the performer’s name, but she sent in her notated manuscript, along with a number of others she had collected. to the musicologist George Petrie, whose 1855 book The Ancient Music of Ireland listed the tune as an anonymous air but with a note attributing its collection to Ross. The tune was published as an instrumental piece with no lyrics but quickly became extremely popular with songwriters. The most well-known of these settings is the song “Danny Boy,” written in 1910 by an English lawyer named Frederic Weatherly. The meaning of the lyrics has been consistently misunderstood, however, leading to the next question:

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Was Annie Moore in “Isle of Hope, Isle of Tears” a Real Person?

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Why yes. I’m glad you asked.

First, a little personal context. I’ve just spent awhile trying to find a picture that has haunted me ever since I visited Ellis Island back in the summer of 2010. I think it’s one of the many blown-up photographs that line the Great Hall, the area where immigrants were initially processed, but I haven’t been able to find it. So I’ll just describe it: a woman on her hands and knees, with a bucket and a brush, scrubbing a hallway. Her back is to the picture and you can’t see her face. Out of all the old photographs I saw that day I remember only this one. To me it’s a representation of the life that many of these people faced. On that same trip we also toured a tenement museum, trying to imagine the lives of people just like the woman in that photo, living in crowded apartment buildings with no running water and barely enough space to breathe. People slept in all sorts of strange contortions, the most memorable being that of the boys who had their upper bodies on a couch and their feet on chairs. (Visit the Tenement Museum the next time you’re in NYC!)

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In Which I Do a Little English-Teachersplaining about Thomas Moore’s “Sing, Sing”

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Léon Bazille Perrault [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
A song about singing is a great choice for a choral concert! So what’s the deal with the lyrics for this song? Well, first let me take a look at the poet himself:

Thomas Moore was an Irishman who lived from 1779-1852. He had a long and varied career, as they say, which could have ended much sooner if the duel he was supposed to fight in 1806 had not been stopped by the authorities; he forever afterward had to deal with rumors that his opponent (the editor of a critical review) had been given an unloaded pistol.

Eventually Moore was persuaded to write lyrics to some already-established Irish airs. These songs included the more-famous “The Last Rose of Summer” and “Believe Me, If All These Endearing Young Charms.”

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How Many Double Meanings Are There in “And You Will Sleep”?

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The choir to which I belong performed this piece only two years after its 2015 premier. The composer, Philip Biedenbender, was a senior at St. Olaf College at the time and a member of the famous choir attached to the school. He’s gone on to build a career, with many other works to his credit. You can visit his website here. Such a great joy to present works by young, up-and-coming artists! 

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Where Did We Get the Story of “The Little Drummer Boy”?

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One of the joys of writing the material on this site is that I have an excuse to dive into the meanings of Christmas songs that I’ve been hearing all my life and always vaguely wondered about.  “The Little Drummer Boy” certainly falls into that category. I sort of assumed that it fell into the genre of stories about gifts brought to the Christ child, and indeed it does, but there’s a surprising amount to say about it beyond that general idea. Let’s start with its origin. (As I’m writing this post I’m listening to the Pentatonix version; you can access the video below.) The song was written in 1941 by a woman named Katherine K. Davis, an American composer and music teacher. Out of her 600+ compositions she is known today only for this one piece. When first published, the heading included the words “Czech Carol freely transcribed by K.K.D.” However, the original carol has never been found, although there is apparently a Czech traditional lullaby that is sometimes listed as the source even though it doesn’t really resemble the carol. Who knows? And I don’t read Czech, so even if I could find it I wouldn’t be able to tell you what it means!

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Mary’s Magnificent “Magnificat”

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Mary and Elizabeth meeting; the Magnificat
“The Visitation” by Philippe de Champaigne, public domain

This is another one of those posts where I may get completely carried away. I’ll try to rein myself in. I want to start out with some info about the composer of the setting I have sung, David N. Childs.  He sounds like an extremely busy composer with lots of irons in the fire. I would encourage you to take a look at his professional website, River Avon Productions, just to get a taste of what he’s up to. Interesting little note: he’s married to a laryngologist. Isn’t that like, so cool? Somebody in one of his choirs is having vocal problems? No prob! He can call in his wife to diagnose the case.

When the choir to which I belong performed this piece in our Christmas 2017 concert, we had the opportunity as we have so many times before to publicize the work of a living composer. It’s so great to be able to do this! You don’t just look the artist up on Wikipedia; you get to see what he/she is up to right now. I’m a little tickled to see that Childs is more than happy to fulfill commissions for “video gaming.”

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What Are the “Gates” in “Eil Nora Alilah”?

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This piece repeats the phrase “bish’al han’ilah”–”as the gates begin to close.” So what are these gates?

So much to say here! Let’s start out with the context of these particular words and indeed of the lyrics as a whole. It’s not tied to Hanukkah but to Yom Kippur, the “Day of Atonement,” and is typically sung at the closing service in observance of this special date on the Jewish calendar. But where did the whole thing start? To find that out we have to go back to the book of Leviticus in the Hebrew Bible, in which God spells out the ceremonies that are to take place on the original Day of Atonement:God spoke to Moses:

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Does “Maris” Mean “Mary” in “Ave Maris Stella”?

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Image by enriquelopezgarre from Pixabay

Well I’m glad you asked! Because “Maris” doesn’t mean “Mary.” It means “sea” or “ocean.” So the title literally means, if you keep the same word order: “Hail, Sea Star.” So where did that wording come from?

The original lyrics date back to somewhere around the 9th century and have been attributed to several authors; no final conclusion has been reached on that issue. The words present Mary as a merciful and loving mother, with “Star of the Sea” being a title that especially appealed to travelers praying for a safe journey. The words were sung to Gregorian chant music, which is always anonymous.

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What? Yet Another Up-and-Coming Young America Composer in Our Concert?

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Note: this post was originally written about a concert in Oct. 2017 that my own choir performed.

Well my goodness! So far I’ve written about the music in our concert from Anne Kilstofte, Dan Forrest, and Daniel Elder. All three are young and American, actively engaged in composing, arranging, teaching, conducting . . . you name it. To that list I now add Victor C. Johnson, the composer of our lovely opening piece, “Music in the Night.” I had looked up the author of the lyrics, Harriet Prescott Spofford, and found her life story to be quite interesting. She’s a good example of what was called a “lady writer” back in the late 1800’s-early 1900’s, turning out short stories, poems and novels to make money when her father’s business failed.

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Is “Oh Hush Thee” a Christmas Song?

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Image from the Library of Congress, Storer, Florence Edith, artist created circa 1912

The original title of this poem is “Christmas Eve,” and it was published in a book of poems and short stories by Eugene Field called Christmas Tales and Christmas Verse. So those facts would seem to end the matter. It’s a lullaby being sung by a mother to her child at Christmas, with stars and angels in the mix. It must be Mary singing to the baby Jesus, right? Well, I don’t think so.

Why not? First of all, look at the illustration that goes with the poem. It’s of an early 1900’s mother and child—and note the “child” part, as it’s not a baby. Secondly, consider the title: “Christmas Eve,” not “Christmas Night.” Nit-picky to the max, I know, but still! It’s taking place the night before Christmas. I will also take a little credit myself here and say that I found the words of the song to be puzzling the first time I heard it, even before I knew the original title, because there seemed to be a muddle about who’s being addressed. The child who is being sung to sleep is told to “hear the Master calling” and reminded that “the Shepherd calls his little lambs.” It seems clear that the Master and Shepherd titles refer to someone other than the child, right? That’s the way I read it, anyway.

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