![](https://turcopolier.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/cowboy_christmas.jpg)
By Robert Willmann
A timeless concert from 1999 — The Three Tenors Christmas — with Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, and Jose Carreras. Pavarotti passed away in 2007, but left the world a better place through the gift of music.
By Robert Willmann
A timeless concert from 1999 — The Three Tenors Christmas — with Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, and Jose Carreras. Pavarotti passed away in 2007, but left the world a better place through the gift of music.
Hard to top that lineup. Thanks.
Suffering from intense homesickness and other things I probably put $50 or more in the jukebox in my favorite Irish Bar when Christmas time came ’round many years ago. This recording was where the lion’s share went.
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen – Bing Crosby
https://youtu.be/1N_ZH9xFPwU
————
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bing_Crosby
As it happens, that story was pure whimsy for dramatic effect; the Associated Press had reported as early as February 1932—as would later be confirmed by both Bing himself and his biographer Charles Thompson—that it was in fact a neighbor—Valentine Hobart, circa 1910—who had named him “Bingo from Bingville” after a comic feature in the local paper called The Bingville Bugle which the young Harry liked. In time, Bingo got shortened to Bing.
———-
God rest ye merry gentlemen
Let nothing you dismay
Remember Christ our Savior
Was born on Christmas Day
To save us all from Satan’s pow’r
When we were gone astray
Oh tidings of comfort and joy
Comfort and joy
Oh tidings of comfort and joy
God rest ye merry gentlemen
Let nothing you dismay
Remember Christ our Savior
Was born on Christmas Day
To save us all from Satan’s pow’r
When we were gone astray
Oh tidings of comfort and joy
Comfort and joy
Oh tidings of comfort and joy
In Bethlehem, in Israel
This blessed Babe was born
And laid within a manger
Upon this blessed morn
The which His Mother Mary
Did nothing take in scorn
Oh tidings of comfort and joy
Comfort and joy
Oh tidings of comfort and joy
Fear not then, said the Angel
Let nothing you affright
This day is born a Savior
Of a pure Virgin bright
To free all those who trust in Him
From Satan’s pow’r and might
Oh tidings of comfort and joy
Comfort and joy
Oh tidings of comfort and joy
God rest ye merry gentlemen
Let nothing you dismay
Remember Christ our Savior
Was born on Christmas Day
To save us all from Satan’s pow’r
When we were gone astray
Oh tidings of comfort and joy
Comfort and joy
Oh tidings of comfort and joy
————
According to this the song goes back to the 17th century:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Rest_You_Merry,_Gentlemen
Thanks for the music!
For a tour through Christmas music of the Renaissance and Baroque periods, try the following playlist:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6WIWapSWYkdiM9y-a8GnC9UaDrrev9o1
The first two videos are actually from the medieval period, and frankly are pretty simple and even boring.
With the third video, “Christmas Music of the 15C and 16C”, things pick up.
If you have never heard it before, I especially recommend the video titled “Praetorius – Lutheran Mass for Christmas Morning”.
Fascinating and beautiful.
Here is a sample, “Puer nobis nascitur” by Praetorius, from that video:
https://youtu.be/wb9lIMxq2yE?t=1h7m35s
What terrific music!
Actually, I meant to refer to “In dulci jublio”:
https://youtu.be/wb9lIMxq2yE?t=1h13m36s
But the hymn I did link to isn’t bad either 🙂
The expertise of this young Latvian woman playing Bach on the pipe organ in the Riga Cathedral is riveting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erXG9vnN-GI
Not specifically for Christmas but yet…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z40eBpbJrvU
A religious leader is worried about the future of Christianity in England
(and, by extension, in all of what in my youth was called “Western Christendom”):
Fox News: Queen’s former chaplain warns ‘multicultural, multifaith’ King Charles III threatens British monarchy.
https://www.foxnews.com/world/queens-former-chaplain-warns-multicultural-multi-faith-king-charles-iii-threatens-british-monarchy
Full disclosure I’m agnostic. I also disclose I believe that Christianity is largely responsible for the Renassance and Enlightenment. A Sovereign who is the protector of everything protects nothing, stands for nothing, encourages nothing. Anyway, the Monarchy died with Elizabeth. So has England. Society collapsing on itself into complete individualism is no longer a functioning society. Even libertarians know that. No defense of religion, no love for nation states, confusion over gender, how we should regard each other, and we return to the mish mash of broad cultural areas governed by what?? Samuel Hutchinson, I think, was right.
Bill,
Samuel Hutchinson? I find many of them in ‘search’.