Hum along while Mark Steyn explains the origins of the only secular Easter song I know…
Irving Berlin’s “Easter Parade” has its beginnings in a very obscure chin-up song from the Great War written in 1917. In this audio special, Mark traces its origins as a First World War morale booster to its re-emergence a generation later as the American Songbook’s only Easter standard. Along the way, we’ll also explore the long languished tradition of Easter parades, the meaning of the word “rotogravure”, and whether anyone actually could write a sonnet about your Easter bonnet.
There are lots of old versions out there; this one is the earliest I could find. Notice that it keeps the original foxtrot cadence:
So were you ever curious about that word “rotogravure”? I was…
This hymn may be the first crossover to the mainstream from a long tradition of black Christian music. Is it the best or most authentic version? Lord, no; it’s white bread all the way through. However, as history, it’s worth a listen especially when you get to the end when Mr Waring uncomfortably shills for his sponsor.
On Good Friday 2018, Palestinians are storming the borders of Israel. As it happens, there is a confluence here: Passover begins at sundown, Christians observe Good Friday, and PoorPalis go on a rampage. Hmmm…maybe they didn’t want to be left out so they performed the ritual they know best.
“A Simple Song” is a hymn song from the musical theatre work composed by Leonard Bernstein with text by Bernstein and additional text and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz.
This Version is performed by Czech singer Jakub Hübner and it’s contained on Hübner’s album “Jakub Hübner” (2017).
Piano: Daniel Wunsch
Flute: Kateřina Macourková
Mix & mastering: Jakub Hübner
Photo: Denisa Grossová Photography
Graphic and video design: Jakub Hübner
— Seneca III, wishing you all a Christmas of love and understanding of what we are from Middle England, this 24th day of December in the year of our Lord 2017.
Reading the poignant note from Egri Nök that was posted at Vlad Tepes last night made me think of Es ist ein Ros’ entsprungen, which we sang in church today in the English-language version, “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming”.
So, in honor of the Third Sunday of Advent, and of Germany-That-Was, here are The King’s Singers performing Es ist ein Ros’ entsprungen:
No wonder it makes the Germans sad to see the East — that’s what they used to have, but they threw it all away. Western Europeans have sold their birthright, and they didn’t even get a mess of pottage in return, just a pocketful of scorpions.
“Prague is Like it Used to be With Us” – A Berliner’s Thoughts in Festive Prague
By Egri Nök
A friend who lives in Berlin sent this note from Prague:
Tonight, I strolled home from a bar, between 4 and 5 in the morning, for half an hour, alone, across the city. The city was quiet. No rubbish, no screaming. At important buildings, there was the occasional police officer, not paying attention to me. At the access road to the old city, there was another police officer, freezing and bored in the middle of the road, but he was there. Scattered party-goers came my way, with civilized behavior. An elderly man walked his dogs on a leash. I felt safe on the whole way, I had nothing* in my pockets, I dilly-dallied and enjoyed the Christmas decorations at the castle hill. All of it was simply enchanting, peace in freedom. Precious Christmas decorations were fixed even on the outside of the ground floor windows, little trees with balls, and mangers stood directly on the pedestrian walk, or on the doorsteps. Apparently, no one here is expecting theft, vandalism, riots.
Prague is like it used to be with us.
There had been only nice, civilized people in the bar, most of them Czech, and a single black person among them who was eager to be the nicest person, too. Earlier this night a friend had told me about Mannheim, where, as a woman, you don’t go anywhere alone at night anymore. And WE are lecturing the Visegrad states? On what? Spare your words!
(* translator’s note: no pepper spray)
To add to this bittersweet note, below are photos taken yesterday evening in a Christmas market in the Hungarian town of Székesfehérvár, where Viktor Orbán grew up and went to school. No soldiers carrying automatic weapons, and not a Merkel Lego in sight:
As many of our readers know, the Baron is a devoted fan of Bach. He went straight from The Grateful Dead to Johann Sebastian without a pause for breath. (Well, that’s an exaggeration, but still…) So when the future Baron was but a wee sprite, he learned enough of Bach to play the organ for our church on Sundays.
This work, Wachet Auf (“Sleepers Wake”, in full Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 140), was an inevitable part of his Advent repertoire. [Being singularly Irish-disabled in learning foreign languages (a deformation no doubt due to learning too much Latin too soon), I referred to this piece as “Whacked Off” — the closest I could come to pronouncing the German title.]
There are, of course, much longer versions of Wachet Auf, complete with the choral parts. See this one from Amsterdam.
Growing up, I knew only the Latin words to this hymn. Some say it dates from the 12th century, some the 9th, some even earlier.
Advent is my favorite season of the Liturgical Year. Always thought of it as the new year when I was a child. Probably because the season of Pentecost just went on and on and on past all reason. Besides, I loved the anticipation of the twelve days of Christmas better than the reality. Also, it’s short and well defined.
Now, if I can just unearth my Advent Wreath frame. I was sure I’d put it with the menorah, but it’s not there…
That’s what reader Mark H says about Beethoven’s Symphony Number 3:
In the finale of Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony, there’s a glorious, triumphal gallop which Leonard Bernstein said had “the swagger of a Hungarian cavalryman”. I find myself thinking of it.
Indeed.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Here’s a breakdown of the graphic notation from the YouTube page:
Q: What do the shapes indicate?
A: The shapes are assigned according to an instrumental group:
rectangle: brass (also timpani)
octagon: clarinet
ellipse: flute
inverted ellipse: oboe and bassoon
rhombus: strings
Q: What do the colors indicate?
A: The colors are assigned to pitch…
Our Australian donors this quarter were generous. It’s hard to grasp how really far away y’all are, and how strange it is that the Anglosphere stretches so far. There is something special in the Oz character, brash and friendly. When I see Prince Harry, I think he ought to carve out a monarchy in Oz. Much more fitting than the rest of ’em.
I came across this street musician a few months ago: everyone ought to be as full of life, melody and happiness as he.
Update: I discovered after I posted this that the first video embed doesn’t work — the channel’s owner has disabled embedding for it. You can watch the video on YouTube instead, if you like. However, the second performance is better, in my opinion.
In the Anglican tradition this day is known “Maundy Thursday”, the holy day that falls on the Thursday before Easter. Dymphna tells me that Catholics call it simply “Holy Thursday”.
The name “Maundy” is derived (via the Old French mandé) from the Latin mandātum (cognate with word “mandate”), the first word of a passage from the Gospel According to John: Mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos, “A new commandment I give to you: that you love one another, as I have loved you.” Those words were spoken before the Last Supper, at the time of the washing of feet, and are now associated with the foot-washing ritual on Maundy Thursday.
The music below isn’t directly connected with Holy Week, but the title has an appropriate penitential tone: O Lamm Gottes, unschuldig, “O innocent lamb of God”, by Johann Sebastian Bach. It is a chorale prelude, BWV 656, one of Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes (or Leipzig Chorales, BWV 651-668). I’ve included two YouTube versions of it, both played on the pipe organ.
The first version is useful for those who read music, since it follows the score all the way through. It was performed by Bine-Katrine Bryndorf at an unspecified location:
The second version is the best performance of the piece that I can find, by a young Swede named Ulf Norberg. It, too, is useful, because you can watch the organist’s hands and feet at work.
Interestingly, there is almost no pedal action in this prelude — not until well after halfway through, at the point where (I think) the actual chorale begins.
The performance was recorded at a live concert in Hedvig Eleonora Church, Stockholm, on March 22, 2015:
In addition to the fact that it’s Holy Week, this essay was occasioned by the recent terrorist attack in Sweden. It made me think about young Ulf Norberg and the pipe organ in Hedvig Eleonora Church in Stockholm — which is presumably not far from the blood-drenched streets where the jihad beer truck ran down and killed four people on April 7.
This magnificent music and that magnificent church are what Sweden is blithely throwing away for the sake of a godless Multicultural utopia. And not just Sweden — all of Western Europe, and eventually the rest of the West, if current trends don’t change their course.
Nevertheless, futile though it may be, it is one of the principal motives behind my choice to continue the struggle against the Great Jihad. The music of J.S. Bach represents the apotheosis of the human spirit, and will remain such even as the civilization that created it turns to dust.
There is no ideology in this, none at all. The sole purpose of all of the sweat and learning and training and hardship is to create in the listener (and the performer) a moment of aesthetic rapture, all in the service of the greater glory of God. There is nothing more.
But ideology may well destroy it. Just as there are no longer any Buddhas at Bamiyan, nor any Buddhists to carve them or contemplate them, there may come a day when all the pipes lie strewn across the paving stones of a shattered building, with no more fingers to race across the keyboards nor feet to tap the pedals.
That’s one of the main reasons why I do what I do: so that this shall not pass from the face of the earth.
“Love one another, as I have loved you.” Soli Deo gloria.
JLH has taken a break from translating German to compose this essay about Christianity in America.
Faith, Hope And…
by JLH
I am not sure that St. Paul did us any favor when he wrote in the 13th chapter of his immortal first letter to the Corinthians, praising the quality of charity:
8 Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away… 13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
Later linguists disliked “charity” as much as they disliked “through a glass darkly” and chose to substitute “love” for the King James word. Not love in the sense of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton (or if you prefer, Beyoncé and Jay-Z) but in the sense of (the outmoded, sexist and non-PC term) “love of fellow Man.” To the young, naive and inquiring mind, this posed just as many difficulties as its predecessor. But let us just assume that “love” is “charity” and vice versa. The formulation remains that there are three important qualities: faith, hope and love/charity.
I approach this summary of lasting values as a key to the differential unfolding of events in the Western World. At one time, Christians were persecuted and endangered, sometimes horrifically killed (or maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to use the past tense). Singly and in groups, they survived the empires and kingdoms of the ancient world, and lived to see their religion become a massive theocratic structure.
The Black Plague spread death and horror across Europe, shaking reliance on civic or religious authority. Crusaders returned from the Near East bringing a renewed interest in the wisdom and art of the ancient world. And the subjects and servants of a monolithic religious edifice watched as an independent-minded (some will say wayward) son of the Church created a crack in its battlements by nailing 95 theses to a church door. Now, instead of being persecuted by their own Church for being different-minded, Christians went to war against each other for the same reason. Rather than e pluribus unum, it was: out of one, many.
After a long slumber, there was a great awakening to the joys of art and music; and after the somnolence of enforced apathy, there was a sudden jolt of passion for religious partisanship. The leavening for this rising of unbridled spontaneity was provided by the Age of Enlightenment (die Aufklärung, le Siècle des lumières), also called the Age of Reason. It is striking to me that German and Austrian writers, among others, repeatedly emphasize the Enlightenment as the touchstone of European civilization. Displacing the so-called Judaeo-Christian heritage, deism and humanism have become the bedrock of Western civilization. Through reason and wisdom, humanity will inexorably improve, and without the help of an attending God. The future is within us.
This optimism about the future of humanity I am inclined to identify with the second of the deathless qualities named by Paul: Hope. And that is how I interpret the repeated references to the Enlightenment — as a pious hope that reason, civility, refinement and humanism will win out over the recent, crass interlopers.
Disciples of the Enlightenment were not only French, English, Scottish and German. They also included prominent Americans such as Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. But there is a difference in how we refer to them. Historians record that the Founders were men of the Enlightenment, but present-day discussions of creeping Islamization and sharia law do not emphasize this. Rather, they tend to emphasize either “American exceptionalism” or Christianity. If America is both Christian and exceptional, does this somehow define us? And if so, how is Christianity here different from the Christianity of the Old World?
For tonight is New Year’s Eve Uncork your spirits and welcome it in
It’s become somewhat of a New Year’s Eve tradition here at Gates of Vienna to post some or all of the lyrics to the song “Laughing into 1939”. Not every year, mind you, but occasionally.
When we first featured it, YouTube versions of songs weren’t always available. But by now virtually everything has been YouTubed, and I’ve embedded the song below so you can hear the melody as well as read the lyrics.
We’ve been laughing into 1939 for more than ten years now. Will the calendar page finally flip over to the Year of Doom this midnight?
Or will we get to live through 1938 at least one more time?
In any case, here’s a bittersweet celebration of the New Year by Al Stewart, the greatest lyricist of our time. It’s from his 1995 album Between the Wars:
