Fall on your knees - oh, hear the angel voices

A few random things I keep meaning to mention. But first, Graham E points out this review, which isn't actually a review of Messiah but does mention it.

Some other links:

Posters advertising our Shostakovich festival have appeared on bus stops all across the city. So you might want to bookmark the official website.

This site might be useful to those of you who are bored with the generic Nokia ringtone.

This site analyses the appeal - or lack of - of a whole load of Christmas songs. Some of you may find it amusing. I did :-) (Warning: there is a small amount of bad language; avoid if this offends you.)

The title of this post is from one of my favourite Christmas songs. I will give you a moment to try to remember which one! But while you do, I feel the need to share the fact that my two favourite verses of any Christmas carol are the following:

Verse 3 of "It came upon a midnight clear":

But with the woes of sin and strife the world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel strain have rolled two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not the love song which they bring;
O hush the noise, ye men of strife and hear the angels sing.

and verse 4 (usually omitted, and not even printed in Carols for Choirs) of "O little town of Bethlehem":

Where children pure and happy pray to the blessed child,
where misery cries out to thee, son of the mother mild;
where charity stands watching and faith holds wide the door,
The dark night wakes, the glory breaks, and Christmas comes once more.

And talking of nice Christmas music, I have put a few mp3s online for you to listen to. These are all songs that you either won't have heard at all, or will have totally forgotten about. But I really like them. (Note: there are many other Christmas songs I like just as much, but you hear those all over the place!)

Cold Cold Christmas (Dana) (3.8 MB) (A bit twee, some would say, but I've always liked this song.)

O Holy Night (N Sync version, featuring Justin Timberlake) (4.1 MB) (These guys are REALLY good close harmony singers - I first realised this when I saw them perform the American national anthem live. It was extremely impressive.) (This is the song that the title of the post is taken from, btw!)

Pirate Christmas Carol (2.5 MB) (I can't remember where I found this - it was doing the rounds of the internet a couple of years ago. I don't think I ever knew who sang it.)

Santa Claus is coming to town (Bruce Springsteen version) (6.2 MB) (This is a live recording. It's not the best one I've heard - I've been looking for that for years... it's one where he asks all his band, in the intro, whether they've been good or not - that amused me! But even without that intro, I love this - the change from 4/4 to 12/8 is irresistible, and there's a great sax solo, and one of the band keeps going "ho ho ho!" in the background!)

The Winter Song (Angel) (4.3 MB) (I remember this song being played all the time on the radio one year - possibly 1978 - but it was never a hit. I really love the "hear the angels join the choir" bit. Yes, this DOES appear to be becoming a bit of a theme, doesn't it?)

Wonderful Christmas Time (Tom McRae version) (5.7 MB) (This is great for those of you who, like me, might not always be at their happiest at Christmas. I love the musical aspects of Christmas - can you tell?! - but the rest of it... well, not so much.)

And finally: here is an mp3 of Leroy Anderson's Sleigh Ride (3.6 MB), for those choir members who want to practise the clapping! (Yes, I'm so incredibly sad and obsessive that I did in fact practise this one year. What? I like to get things right!) The first clap is at 1:12 into the track... there are 7 altogether. The others will be left as an exercise for the reader :p