Post by Slinger on Dec 27, 2015 14:43:44 GMT
From now until Jan 4th I'm going to post 12 Christmas themed pieces of music with a little bit of info about each. Rest assured I had to look 99% of it up, so I'm not trying to look clever, 
I just think it's nicer to have a bit of background sometimes. The 12 pieces are in no particular order, some famous and some not so famous, so hopefully you'll find a few you've never heard before as well as some old favourites.
N.B. I'd be greatly obliged if you didn't post your own favourites/choices in these threads because I'm going to look very silly if you choose pieces I've picked for later in this little series.
GERALD FINZI: IN TERRA PAX
The work is a setting of two verses from Robert Bridges’ poem, ‘Noel: Christmas Eve, 1913’, subtitled Pax hominibus bonae voluntatis (Peace and goodwill to all men), which Finzi imaginatively and skilfully uses to frame St Luke’s account of the angels’ appearance to the shepherds. In Terra Pax is subtitled ‘Christmas Scene’, and Finzi explained that ‘the Nativity becomes a vision seen by a wanderer on a dark and frosty Christmas Eve in our own familiar landscape’. This placing of the Biblical story into an English pastoral context is entirely consistent with Finzi’s close affinity with the English Romantic tradition, and his lifelong dedication to the creation of his own rural paradise at his home in Ashmansworth, near Newbury.
I just think it's nicer to have a bit of background sometimes. The 12 pieces are in no particular order, some famous and some not so famous, so hopefully you'll find a few you've never heard before as well as some old favourites.N.B. I'd be greatly obliged if you didn't post your own favourites/choices in these threads because I'm going to look very silly if you choose pieces I've picked for later in this little series.
GERALD FINZI: IN TERRA PAX
The work is a setting of two verses from Robert Bridges’ poem, ‘Noel: Christmas Eve, 1913’, subtitled Pax hominibus bonae voluntatis (Peace and goodwill to all men), which Finzi imaginatively and skilfully uses to frame St Luke’s account of the angels’ appearance to the shepherds. In Terra Pax is subtitled ‘Christmas Scene’, and Finzi explained that ‘the Nativity becomes a vision seen by a wanderer on a dark and frosty Christmas Eve in our own familiar landscape’. This placing of the Biblical story into an English pastoral context is entirely consistent with Finzi’s close affinity with the English Romantic tradition, and his lifelong dedication to the creation of his own rural paradise at his home in Ashmansworth, near Newbury.