From the war-torn countryside of First-World War France to the snowy winter of tenth-century Bohemia, in the cozy comfort of Queen Victoria's Windsor Castle withdrawing-room and even at sea, the customs and songs of Christmas have played an integral role in European and colonial history.
This book, in the same large format as "The Armed Man" by the same author presents a selection of imaginative stories, drawn wherever possible from historical fact as the introduction to Christmas songs, some familiar, some less so.
"What? I thought this was a book of short stories!" It is.
"So what is this music doing in an anthology of stories?"
Well, you won't miss much if you can't read the music. But if you can, you will be able to add another dimension to the stories, and I hope you will enjoy playing the music.
In an age of on-demand media, it seems that fewer and fewer people still want to make their own music. When was the last time you heard a contractor, or a delivery man whistling a cheerful tune as he worked? My hope is that perhaps one or two of the people who read these stories will be prompted to learn to read music for themselves. But to teach you to read music is not the point of this book. There are much better "methods" by people much more thoroughly versed in music theory than myself. Just remember, you play your instrument (even if your instru- ment is your own voice), don't make the mistake of trying to "work" it.
Excerpt from Hear ye! Hear ye!:
It’s not hard to understand why Hark! The Herald Angels Sing1 became such a popular carol; it has a good, strong melody, and after Mr. William Cummings had adapted Felix Mendelssohn’s original theme to the words written by Charles Wesley, I would think even a tone deaf drummer could hear the makings of a winner.
I don’t know about you, but after spending half an hour in the presence of Mr.Cummings, I was desperate to get away. He is, without doubt, a consummately skilful musician, with an uncommon interest in the music of earlier composers. Something rare in his own time. But his view has also been tainted to a large extent by the Victorian nostalgia for the age of chivalry. He was an impressionable eighteen-year old when the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood first exhibited their paintings at the Royal Academy of Arts in London and nobody could blame him for being swept along with the tide of enthusiasm for the neoGothic style that followed.
It was clear, within minutes of engaging him in conversation that while he might suggest a few leads to us for further investigation, we would learn nothing substantially useful from him which is why I bent the rules a little and requested that dispatch send us back further to learn about the practical aspects of heraldry. After all, with William Cummings’ help, we have added another beautiful song to the collection but I would like to know more about the real employment of the heralds themselves than we can learn by peering through rose-tinted Victorian-era spectacles.
The two most obvious things about the work of a herald, indeed, the only two things I know for certain right now, are that they made announcements on behalf of their lord (i.e. heralded), and that they knew about the graphic identities of the nobles. Indeed, they had a specialized jargon, blazon, ultimately a language in its own right, which describes the ‘arms’ of someone accurately enough that another herald could draw them from the description in blazon.
Because the office of herald is an appointment of the court it was necessary to obtain a couple of very skilfully crafted letters patent establishing our credentials as junior representatives of one of the smaller eastern European kingdoms (which has been under intermittent assault by the Teutonic knights, something to bear in mind during conversations regarding our place of origin). I’m sure you can imagine that the The two most obvious things about the work of a herald, indeed, the only two things I know for certain right now, are that they made announcements on behalf of their lord (i.e. heralded), and that they knew about the graphic identities of the nobles. Indeed, they had a specialized jargon, blazon, ultimately a language in its own right, which describes the ‘arms’ of someone accurately enough that another herald could draw them from the description in blazon.
Because the office of herald is an appointment of the court it was necessary to obtain a couple of very skilfully crafted letters patent establishing our credentials as junior representatives of one of the smaller eastern European kingdoms (which has been under intermittent assault by the Teutonic knights, something to bear in mind during conversations regarding our place of origin). I’m sure you can imagine that the tonsured scribe who assembled our identification documents was hand-somely rewarded (a tricky matter if it is to be accomplished without disrupting the structure of time and space). Now it is up to us to find an accommodating herald willing to consider our request to observe his work in exchange for a degree of accreditation with the court of the grand duchy of Lithuania.
