Category: Liturgy and Music

What song is this, that dreary song, a-whining and a-bleating?

OK, I admit it: there is a “Christmas carol” which I really, really don’t like. I simply find “What child is this?” rather depressing. I think it’s not the tune’s association with Henry VIII (that robber and killer); it’s the whiny “Greensleeves” tune itself.
The carol would have been more upbeat if the pop-band “Chicago” had sung it:
“Does anybody really know what Child this is?
Does anybody really care about this Child?
If so, I can’t imagine who;
but He was born for me and you.”
Verse 1:
“As I was walking through the town one day,
a man and woman came to me
and asked: is there an inn where we can stay
today?”

The Russian concert on EWTN

For those who didn’t hear the concert aired on EWTN Monday night from Washington, here’s a link to other music by the same composer, the Russian Orthodox bishop Hilarion (Alfeyev).
I only heard about half of his Christmas Oratorio, but so far I like his liturgical music better. The latter is really quite beautiful, but the oratorio’s long recitatives of Scripture texts, delivered ascetically stentorian and recto tono, didn’t seem fitting in the work of a non-liturgical nature, intended for concert performance.
The premiere of a lengthy new work necessarily carries with it a certain amount of tension: when the composer is a bishop and the concert is hosted by another Church, add some more; this time, in a foreign capital, at a time of heightened international stress, this performance by the Orchestra and Chorus of the Russian Defense Ministry, of all things, came off as a joyless reminder of the Cold War. It’s too bad: Bp. Hilarion deserves better.