About the Arrangers

Robert Russell Bennett was one of America’s greatest arrangers and orchestrators; he was a pupil of the famed French teacher and conductor, Nadia Boulanger. On Broadway, he orchestrated over 300 musicals in his 40-year career, working with almost every major American composer; Grove’s says of him that his orchestrations frequently showed "...a mastery of instrumentation on a higher level than the musical material itself." Bennett died in 1981 at the age of 87.

Robert L. Shaw is known to most of us as the director of the Robert Shaw Chorale, touring widely in America and elsewhere for nearly twenty years, before he became music director of the Atlanta Symphony in 1967. He began his musical career as a religion student at Pomona (where he got his nose broken playing football against UCLA -- lesson learned "use better judgement") continued with the Fred Waring Glee Club and was its director for some time during the 1930’s and ‘40’s. He was associate director of the Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell before going to Atlanta. He died in 1997, aged 81. Among Shaw’s legacies is a large body of compositions and arrangements which were done for him, or in which he collaborated, by artisans such as Alice Parker and Robert Russell Bennett. This short medley—perhaps it would not be exaggeration to call it a rhapsody instead—is one of several Yuletide works by the same collaborators, of which the Chorus has previously sung at least one other. Bennett also produced similar works on his own; the Chorus included one such work on its Christmas concert in 2000.

Information about the selections in Many Moods of Christmas

O Sanctissima The sixteenth-century Latin text was a hymn to the Virgin; the melody is believed to be of Sicilian or Italian origin, and was once known as the ‘Sicilian Mariner’s Prayer’. As "O Du Frohliche, O Du Selige," with words by Johann Gottfried Herder, it became one of the most popular Christmas hymns in Germany, and several hymn versions have been used in the US and England.

Joy to the World One of the best-loved of Christmas hymns, the melody, Antioch, is thought to have been the work of Georg Friederich Handel, dating to the early eighteenth century. The arrangement here closely resembles that made by the American hymnodist Lowell Mason a century after Handel, and almost universally adopted in modern hymnals. The words are thought to have been inspired by Psalm 98—" Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth..."-- but were the work of the English hymnodist Isaac Watts, probably more or less contemporaneously with Handel’s music, although it is by no means certain that this tune was the one originally used with Watts’ lyric.

Away in a Manger [Luther’s Cradle Hymn] Although it has been traditional to credit this hymn to Martin Luther, there is no evidence whatever to substantiate the attribution, even as to the words. The English composer and musicologist Ralph Vaughan Williams and his collaborators wrote, in 1928, that Luther "would have been surprised to find his work associated with so slight a tune", and that "...we could be sure that [Luther] was entirely innocent of the thing in any form whatever." The first known appearance of the poem was in 1885, and an additional verse was apparently added by others in the 1890’s. The source of the tune is also complex: The tune used here, which many would regard as the most traditional, may have been composed by James R. Murray in the late nineteenth century, and in any event is probably of American origin. However, this carol is often sung to any of at least four other tunes, one being that of the Scottish song, "Flow Gently, Sweet Afton".

Fum, Fum, Fum This carol has achieved considerable popularity in recent years, owing in part to Robert Shaw and his collaborators. It is of Catalan folk origin; the English lyrics used here almost certainly are fairly recent, and appear to bear little resemblance to the Catalonian text. We believe, however, that the refrain, "Fum, fum, fum", is imitating the sound of the zambomba, a type of friction drum; a rod projecting from the ‘drumhead’ is rubbed or plucked with the hands. The zambomba is closely associated with the flamenco tradition, including the flamenco Mass.

March of the Kings This is an ancient tune—some sources place it in Provence as early as the thirteenth century—and was made famous by the French master Georges Bizet in his 1872 incidental music for a play by Daudet, L’Arlesienne. It is known elsewhere as "March of Turenne", although that reference is unclear. Many composers have utilized the tune and/or written variations upon it, and it has been played in every conceivable meter and at many different tempi. As an Epiphany carol, there are several sets of English words; Messrs. Shaw and Bennett chose to use French lyrics in this arrangement, which plays it off against a continuation of "Fum, Fum, Fum". The French words describe the royal procession of the three golden-garbed Kings, accompanied by warriors and guards brandishing their shields, certainly a most impressive theme on which to end this medley.

WHITE CHRISTMAS

Ironically, the most popular American Christmas song was written by an immigrant Jew, Irving Berlin (born Israel Baline, the son of a poor cantor, in Temun, Siberia). The song was a set piece for the 1942 movie, "Holiday Inn", which starred Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire and Marjorie Reynolds. The story line of the movie provided opportunities for a song for each of the major holidays, so, for example, Fred Astaire dusted off "Easter Parade" for that segment. For the Christmas season, the directors decided a new song was needed, and Berlin wrote this ‘unusually chromatic sentimental ballad’ (paraphrasing Groves’ Dictionary of Popular Music) to be sung by Crosby and Reynolds. The song won an Academy Award for 1942, and by some estimates is the most popular recording of all time, having sold well over 150 million copies in various versions. This arrangement by Mac Huff, with instrumental accompaniment by John Moss, dates from the 1990’s.