Celtic Christmas

Celtic Carols

The Holly and the Ivy and the Wassail carol were documented by early ethnomusicologist Cecil Sharp in the 1909 Road Folk Song Index collection of Gloucestershire folk songs.  I Saw Three Ships is based on the Germanic legend of the Three Wise Men’s journey into Cologne to witness the birth of Christ and its Scottish melody traditionally known as "As I Sat On a Sunny Bank,” and was particularly popular in Cornwall. Greensleeves, the melody underpinning the lyrics to What Child is This, dates in print to 1580 England as a broadside ballad, and is referenced in Shakespear’s Merry Wives of Windsor and Ralph Vaughn Williams’ opera Sir John in Love. 

The Nutcracker Suite by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

This two-act classical ballet is set on Christmas Eve at the foot of a Christmas tree in a child's imagination. The plot is an adaptation of E.T.A Hoffmann’s 1816 short story, “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King.” The ballet was not immediately successful following in the footsteps of Tchaikovsky's more popular Sleeping Beauty, but the first premier of the suite was an instant hit. In the suite, the miniature overture and characteristic dances culminate in the Trepak, a vigorous Russian and Ukrainian folk dance. This suite has since become legendary, inspiring numerous reimaginings including the favorite Duke Elligton and Billy Strayhorn arrangement for their 1960 album with Columbia Records during the Harlem Renaissance. 

Trio Elegiaque No. 1 in G minor by Sergei Rachmaninoff

This trio was written in 1892, when the composer was 18 years old and while still a student in Moscow as an homage to his elder friend and mentor, Tchaikovsky. The work was first performed on January 30 of the same year with the composer at the piano, David Kreyn at the violin and Anatoliy Brandukov at the cello. The first edition did not appear until 1947 and the trio has no designated opus number. The key to the connection with Tchaikovsky of this first trio is its repetitive opening theme, a four-note rising motif, that dominates the 15-minute work. Played backwards in the same rhythm it is exactly the opening descending motif of Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto, and the allusion would have been apparent to listeners and teachers at the university, as would the closing funeral march imitative of Tchaikovsky's elegy to Nikolai Rubinstein. The second trio, written two years later, was the true "elegiac" work mourning Tchaikovsky's death.