Christmas 2012

 December 24, 2012.  Merry Christmas to all!  The wonderful leaf from a Choir book you see here comes from 1395 and contains a little bit of music and a little bit of art.  The music is the introit (entrance) to the Mass for Christmas Day.  The picture represents the Nativity and the Annunciation to the Shepherds.  This illustration was created by a monk, Don Silvestro dei Gherarducci who went on to become a rather well known painter (but not as famous as his younger partner, Lorenzo Monaco, who worked with Gherarducci at the same monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence).

And here is the first movement of the first part, Chorus, of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Christmas Oratorio.  It starts with Jauchzet, frohlocket, auf, preiset die Tage, or Celebrate, rejoice, rise up and praise these days, a good command to follow.  The performance is by the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists under the baton of Sir John Eliot Gardiner (courtesy of YouTube).

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