Steeleye Span Can Still Sing "Gaudete"
12/11/2011
From a 2004 tour:
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Always my favourite! It is the combination of great liveliness and piety.
Posted by: ex pat | 12/11/2011 at 06:13 PM
I thought I'd better post it, in case you might not get to hear it this year.:-)
Posted by: Mac | 12/11/2011 at 09:42 PM
There's WAY more Christmas carols on the radio here than in GB. And Handel. And Christmas music generally. On the feast of the Immaculate Conception WAUS, the Protestant station I listen to most of the time, had some long Slavic Marian Hymn.
Posted by: ex pat | 12/12/2011 at 08:46 AM
I avoid radio and stores where they play Christmas music, because I like it so much that I don't want to be overexposed to it, or associate it too much with, say, being in WalMart. Of course that means I just avoid stores in general. That's pretty cool about the Protestant station. Can't have been an accident. The times they are a-changin'.
Posted by: Mac | 12/12/2011 at 09:44 AM
I was amazed on the first Sunday of Advent, zapping through the channels on a hotel TV set, to find that ZDF were marking the occasion by broadcasting a full evening of Bach's Advent and Christmas music from a church in Dresden, performed by the Saxon State Orchestra and Saxon State Opera. I really can't imagine the BBC doing anything similar (to the extent that the Proms are not quite something similar).
Posted by: Paul | 12/12/2011 at 03:06 PM
I didn't know what ZDF is. Wikipedia to the rescue. That is pretty cool (and amazing, I guess).
Posted by: Mac | 12/12/2011 at 03:27 PM
It is indeed unimaginably different from the BBC. They are doing the whole of the Messiah on the 18th. They don't play schlocky carols. They are all or mainly all performed by excellent choirs.
Posted by: ex pat | 12/12/2011 at 07:00 PM
The ZDF is? Do you listen to it online?
Posted by: Mac | 12/12/2011 at 09:30 PM
No, WAUS - sorry, I was just continuing my own thought. I looked up ZDF on wiki, but no, I've never listened to it. I don't listen to the radio in the office, and I don't have internet at home. If I did I fear I would listen to the BBC online all the time, and simply live in 'England inside my house'.
Posted by: ex pat | 12/13/2011 at 09:29 AM
Well, that is very impressive. There is an evangelical FM station here, as well as several AMs. The AMs tend to be more fundamentalist. The FM plays ordinary Christian rock most of the time but I've never listened to it this time of year. Now I'm curious as to whether they do anything like this or not.
"England inside my house" doesn't sound so bad. Did you see that comment several days ago from someone talking about using the Advent photos? Her name was a link to a blog where she said she lives in an English village and loves the English countryside. It sounded like what used to be the American image of England, and refreshingly unlike what the current image is coming to be. Sort of reassuring.
Posted by: Mac | 12/13/2011 at 10:13 AM
Yes, I saw that link. 'England inside my house' would make me grumpy when I leave the house. You have to live when and where you live. There's a comment about that in Screwtape.
Posted by: ex pat | 12/13/2011 at 11:13 AM
Good point.
I'm sure that just as the old image was never anything like the whole story, so the new image isn't either.
Posted by: Mac | 12/13/2011 at 11:23 AM
That's strange. My comment didn't 'take'. I said a fair amount of England still looks like that link. My father and stepmother live immediately to the left of this photo, in 'Church Cottage'.
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=saint+mary+magdalen+norfolk+england&hl=en&sa=X&gbv=2&biw=1344&bih=678&tbm=isch&tbnid=dkslwTnzbigFUM:&imgrefurl=http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St_Mary_Magdalen%27s_Church,_Pentney,_Norfolk_-_geograph.org.uk_-_697333.jpg&docid=uo8eMd2qGHtgbM&itg=1&imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/St_Mary_Magdalen%2527s_Church,_Pentney,_Norfolk_-_geograph.org.uk_-_697333.jpg&w=640&h=402&ei=ye7nTrK4AcPu0gHX74X7Ag&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=618&vpy=161&dur=7691&hovh=178&hovw=283&tx=116&ty=93&sig=113417525764622500259&page=1&tbnh=129&tbnw=205&start=0&ndsp=16&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0">http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St_Mary_Magdalen%27s_Church,_Pentney,_Norfolk_-_geograph.org.uk_-_697333.jpg&docid=uo8eMd2qGHtgbM&itg=1&imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/St_Mary_Magdalen%2527s_Church,_Pentney,_Norfolk_-_geograph.org.uk_-_697333.jpg&w=640&h=402&ei=ye7nTrK4AcPu0gHX74X7Ag&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=618&vpy=161&dur=7691&hovh=178&hovw=283&tx=116&ty=93&sig=113417525764622500259&page=1&tbnh=129&tbnw=205&start=0&ndsp=16&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0">http://www.google.com/imgres?q=saint+mary+magdalen+norfolk+england&hl=en&sa=X&gbv=2&biw=1344&bih=678&tbm=isch&tbnid=dkslwTnzbigFUM:&imgrefurl=http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St_Mary_Magdalen%27s_Church,_Pentney,_Norfolk_-_geograph.org.uk_-_697333.jpg&docid=uo8eMd2qGHtgbM&itg=1&imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/St_Mary_Magdalen%2527s_Church,_Pentney,_Norfolk_-_geograph.org.uk_-_697333.jpg&w=640&h=402&ei=ye7nTrK4AcPu0gHX74X7Ag&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=618&vpy=161&dur=7691&hovh=178&hovw=283&tx=116&ty=93&sig=113417525764622500259&page=1&tbnh=129&tbnw=205&start=0&ndsp=16&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0
Posted by: ex pat | 12/13/2011 at 06:37 PM
For the first time since I got here in December I organized my DVDs into alphabetical order. Admittedly, my DVDs got here in March, but even so, I don't like them disarranged but I still did not arrange them. Until the necessity of digging out the Steeleye Span dvd forced me to do it!
Posted by: ex pat | 12/13/2011 at 06:49 PM
I'd say getting it done in 9 or 10 months is pretty speedy. I have things that haven't moved from their completely unorganized condition for a decade or more. A Steeleye Span DVD? What's the name of it?
Another shot at linking to that picture. What can I say but wow? and wish I was there.
Posted by: Mac | 12/13/2011 at 07:26 PM
I have only just been able to view this performance, Maclin, since my little treasures had used up the last month's gigabytes!
Anyway, I loved this performance, although I was not so keen on their pronunciation. Still, it doesn't pay to be unreasonably fussy. The singing is lovely and I love that piece!
Posted by: Louise | 12/13/2011 at 08:34 PM
Francesca, I think you are wise not to "live in England inside your house."
Posted by: Louise | 12/13/2011 at 08:36 PM
To my ears the version the pronunciation in the version they originally recorded (1973 or so) is noticeably more sort of lower-class sounding, and also a bit more energetic, which wouldn't be surprising.
Posted by: Mac | 12/13/2011 at 09:46 PM
Everyone tried to sound lower class in 1973. It was a survival tactic!
My stepmother has been a leading light in that church. She writes and distributes a parish newsletter and much else. She is being received into the RC church at Easter. I have no idea how her relationship to the local church will develop henceforth.
Posted by: ex pat | 12/14/2011 at 09:06 AM
Too bad the whole parish isn't coming in.
Posted by: Mac | 12/14/2011 at 10:57 AM
I just listened to my 'Best of Steeleye Span' DVD, and they had much more Northern accents back then.
Posted by: ex pat | 12/15/2011 at 09:10 AM
Interesting that it's a Northern accent. To me there seems to be a vague similarity to the Southern U.S. accent.
Posted by: Mac | 12/15/2011 at 09:33 AM