The holiday season is once again upon us and with the month nearly being over, we here at Acme are proud to bring you the Twelfth Annual Holiday Video Festival.
Today's theme - our first guest programmer, the birthday girl.
She decided to go old school this year:
Ave Maria
The original words of Ave Maria (Hail Mary) were in English, being part of a poem called The Lady of the Lake, written in 1810 by Sir Walter Scott. The poem drew on the romance of the legend regarding the 5th century British leader King Arthur, but transferred it to Scott's native Scotland. In 1825 during a holiday in Upper Austria, the composer Franz Schubert set to music a prayer from the poem using a German translation by Adam Storck. Scored for piano and voice, it was first published in 1826 as D839 Op 52 no 6. Schubert called his piece Ellens dritter Gesang (Ellen's third song) and it was written as a prayer to the Virgin Mary from a frightened girl, Ellen Douglas, who had been forced into hiding.
Hallelujah chorus, from Händel's Messiah -
Far be it from anyone at Acme to say otherwise, but this perennial Christmas classic was actually written as an Easter offering by Handel when it first premiered in Musick Hall in Dublin on April 13, 1742
Hark! the Herald Angels Sing -
The tune was originally composed by Felix Mendelssohn in 1840 for the second chorus "Gott ist Licht" ("God is Light"), of the cantata Festgesang ("Festival Song"). Festgesang was written by the German composer to commemorate Johann Gutenberg and the invention of printing. Mendelssohn died in 1847 and in 1855 Dr. William Cummings, who was an enthusiast of the German composer, put the words and music together in spite of the fact that Mendelssohn had made it clear that his music was not be used for sacred purposes. Additionally, the lyricist Wesley had envisaged his words being sung to the same tune as his Easter hymn, Christ the Lord is Risen Today. However it is Mendelssohn's tune that is generally used today.
Do You Hear What I Hear?
Married couple Noel Regney and Gloria Shayne Baker penned this Christmas carol in October 1962. Generally it was Baker who wrote the lyrics for their songs while Regney composed the music but in this instance it was the other way round. Regney's lyrics are a plea for peace, and they were written during the Cuban Missile Crisis when the USSR was spotted constructing bases for ballistic nuclear missiles in Cuba. These weapons had the ability to strike most of the continental United States and a confrontation was only averted when they were dismantled at the US president's insistence. Baker stated in an interview with the Los Angeles Times years later that neither could personally perform the entire song at the time they wrote it because of the emotions surrounding the incident. "Our little song broke us up. You must realize there was a threat of nuclear war at the time."
Angels We Have Heard On High -
The French carol Les anges dans nos campagnes, now known as Angels We Have Heard on High, is completely anonymous. It has always been printed with no known lyricist or composer. (This song holds a special place in the Caligari household as SOS would sing this, full-throated, at about eighteen months old, anywhere, anytime.)
The birthday girl want to wish everyone a 'Buon Natale'!
Demand Euphoria!
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