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Permalink Reply by Grinning Cat on December 25, 2012 at 12:46pm

The tune for "Masters In This Hall" was composed as "Marche pour les Matelots" (March for the Sailors) by Marin Marais for his opera Alcione (1706). It quickly became a popular dance tune, which we know as The Female Saylor.

(The Christmas carol was written by William Morris some 150 years later, around 1860.)

Permalink Reply by Grinning Cat on December 25, 2012 at 12:53pm

What Gift Is This?
words by John Hoad
to the tune "Greensleeves" (trad. English)

What touch is this that heals our pain
when all our world is troubled?
When body's pressed and mind distressed
and every problem doubled?

CHORUS:
This, this is human love, the gift we share, the gift of self,
This, this the love we give to human sister, brother.

What gift is this that science gives
and art and music blending?
And crafts and skills and working wills
in concert never ending?

CHORUS

What word is this that cheers the mind
to see the strength of heroes?Who dared the wrong and fought so long
to plow our freedom's furrows?

CHORUS

What light is this that shines so clear
upon our journey onward?
When doubt assails and fear prevails,
our values take us forward?

CHORUS

(There's sheet music, with words, and an auto-playing instrumental MIDI rendition at this page from the Ethical Society Songbook: http://george.speckert.com/songbook/EditorsChoice/E30.htm )

Permalink Reply by James Kz on December 25, 2012 at 1:04pm

Well, today's theme music in the Greater Rural Nebraska Metroplex is "Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!"

I am also partial to Auld Lang Syne.

Silver Bells is nice, because it speaks of things we just don't have around here.

And I like all of the songs on the album "Oy to the World," Christmas songs secular and sectarian done by the Klezmer band as Klezmer music by The Klezmonauts. The rendition of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" as a song from a spaghetti-Western movie soundtrack with the whistle from "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" is priceless.

Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on December 25, 2012 at 5:21pm

For me, the utter, absolute classic come from Nat "King" Cole, himself:




It was a classic nearly 60 years ago when I first heard it, and it remains so to this day.  Merry Christmas, gang.

Permalink Reply by Randall Smith on December 26, 2012 at 7:27am

A day late, but my favorite secular song is Mel Torme's "The Christmas Song" (Chestnuts roasting...). And, despite the lyrics, my favorite religious song is Handel's "For Unto Us a Child is Born", from The Messiah. Natalie Cole's "Jingle Bells" knocks me out. She really swings.  I'm just glad Christmas is over, as I'm sick of Frosty, White Christmas, Silent Night, etc.

Permalink Reply by Grinning Cat on December 29, 2012 at 10:13pm

Thanks to Ruth Anthony-Gardner, we have new words to the Hallelujah Chorus!

Permalink Reply by Ian Mason on January 5, 2013 at 2:44pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qcPS-J0HTg

Permalink Reply by Grinning Cat on January 6, 2013 at 8:00am

I like it! Thanks, Ian!

Permalink Reply by Steph S. on January 8, 2013 at 6:05pm

I like "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year"

"Jingle Bells" Both sung by Andy Williams