A Feast of Carols

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Director's Notes

It’s so good to be with you this afternoon! We’re delighted you’ve chosen to celebrate the holidays with us through music. After some time away in 2020 and 2021, we’ve been especially keen to return to our musical home: the concert. And what better way to do so than with a concert of holiday music? Our program reaches back across the ages to some of the first melodies ever written down and presents them alongside familiar carols and the spirited music of Handel and Bach. You’ll hear timeless tunes sung by heart by untold millions over hundreds of years as well as new arrangements on which the ink is barely dry. The texts of these pieces don’t precisely delineate the stories of the holidays so much as trace their outlines and highlight several moments and key themes: the yearning to be lifted out of darkness and gloom into light and hope, the joy of sharing good news, and the potential for renewal portended by a newborn (and latent in us all). These are touchstones for any ear and every era. I hope that some combination of word, melody, and space conjures for you a doorway into a realm of reflection, even reverie, where you can marvel at the beauty of music.

Each season, just as we might trim our trees with treasured heirloom ornaments alongside new keepsakes, we revisit the Christmas story in a slightly different way, sampling different carols and melodies, ancient and new, or by hearing new spoken and musical languages. This year, we hear Handel’s indelible riffs in Messiah sparkle with new jubilance when sung through the prism of the bright, clear vowels of the Spanish language. Many “traditional” holiday tunes featured on this program come to us by way of England and Germany and are steeped in 18^th- and 19^th-century musical style. This season, we’ll complement them with the story of the Magi as told through the words and music of two 20^th-century American artists: the poet Langston Hughes and the composer Margaret Bonds. After meeting each other around 1930, Hughes encouraged Bonds to move to New York City, and they quickly formed a friendship and artistic relationship. Bonds recalled “we were like brother and sister.” Harpist and Bonds scholar Ashley Jackson notes: “Over the years, she sent him melodies, requested lyrics, and told him when she felt certain phrases did not suit her musical conception. They also gossiped, exchanged Christmas greetings, and offered each other words of advice and encouragement.” The fruitful collaboration yielded many beautiful art songs, and, eventually, a Christmas cantata, from which we’ll share several movements today, Ballad of the Brown King. Langston Hughes’s libretto for Ballad of the Brown King focuses on Balthazar, the Black king who journeyed to Bethlehem to witness the birth of Jesus Christ. Created and revised throughout the second half of the 1950s, in the midst of a burgeoning civil rights movement, Ballad had a purpose and mission beyond its musical one. In a letter to Hughes, Bonds shed some light on her conception of the work’s significance, writing, “It is a great mission to tell Negroes how great they are.” The centering of a dark-skinned King in the Christmas narrative was a powerful, purposeful artistic choice. Jackson notes: “As is evident in their works that celebrate Black beauty, Bonds and Hughes shared a mutual understanding of their roles as cultural ambassadors for racial uplift. Bonds wrote to Hughes that the creation of Ballad of the Brown King gave “the dark youth of America a cantata which makes them proud to sing.” And by 1961, after a well-received performance, Bonds confidently avowed, in a letter to Hughes: “The Brown King definitely ‘led the parade’ this Xmas. You and I together have created a choral composition to be programmed with Bach and Handel.” And so we shall!

And while I hope you enjoy your experience as an individual listener, I hope you’ll also take a moment to appreciate the uniquely communal experience of attending a concert. After so much time apart, and so much time alone, listening only to digital signals buzzing metallic speakers, the joyful, comforting, familiar music of the holidays, born of breath and body, enjoyed together, resonates more deeply than ever. Just as the global community has, our Princeton Pro Musica community has experienced loss, of cherished singers and audience members who have passed or moved away. And at the same time, we’ve welcomed new musicians and listeners. It is the love of music that begets that community and communion. I sincerely hope that some musical moment experienced today reminds you, palpably, happily, of what a joy it is to be human, alongside others, and what a gift it is to be able to surrender ourselves to one of the most meaningful manifestations of humanity: music. It is in this spirit that our penultimate selection will remind us all how precious it is that music, like the holidays themselves, can bring us together in the present and give an occasion for future reunion. Auld Lang Syne bids us lean on one another, take a cup o’ kindness, and raise a glass for auld lang syne—for the sake of old times—while we turn toward the next chapter. Thank you for choosing to join us this afternoon as we look back and look forward to our next time together.

“For there’s a trusty hand, my friend, and give me a hand o’ thine, for we’ll take a right good-will draught for auld lang syne.”