A seasonal message from the Vicar of Bray
⇒ William York http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viw5JXopin0, with some adjustments by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley, offers a little Christmas merriment with his new version of the English folk-song The Vicar of Bray, who notoriously switched his religious allegiance with each new monarch. Today’s Vicar of Bray is probably preaching climate at a community college somewhere in upstate New York.
In George Bush Senior’s golden days when climate change no harm meant,
A climatologist was I, and so I gained preferment.
I quickly knew more CO2 might further my promotion:
I wrote computer code to push the global warming notion.
And this is law that I’ll maintain: my forecasts you shall cite, sir,
For, hot or cold or drought or rain, my model’s always right, sir.
When William Clinton took the oath, with climate change in fashion,
And Big Al Gore bestrode the world, Apocalypse his passion,
IPCC provided me with excellent connections:
Who needs to be a Wall Street quant? Do climate change projections.
And this is law…
When nations signed the Protocol to ease our planet’s fever,
The Hill said Nay and I became a bright Green eager beaver.
I got to know an NGO to champion my predictions,
And (never mind what physics says) to swear they were not fictions.
And this is law…
When George Bush Junior took control and challenged our consensus,
And Nature whined that governments must ever recompense us,
Conformist manuscripts alone the editors selected,
And all who swam against the stream they hastily rejected.
And this is law…
When Barack next stretched forth his hand to stop the oceans rising,
The times had changed: I knew by then that this was not surprising,
So when Solyndra, subsidized by half a billion dollars,
Went bust I switched to Hyperloop from fossil-fuel’d Corollas.
And this is law…
When Trump the Paris pact denied, and shock’d the true-believers,
I did not know whom I should back – the stayers or the leavers.
But batteries, it seemed to me, might offer a solution,
And so I bought a Chevy Volt – my pride and absolution.
And this is law…
The gravy train will trundle on with each Inauguration
And, though the temperature may fall, the code of our creation
Will ever show a warming world: our models shall not falter.
Though we be wrong we’re always right — although the times may alter.
And this is law…
My own e-Christmas card for readers of WattsUpWithThat this year is a recording of my interpretation of Schubert’s Christuswiegenlied der lachenden Engel, the Laughing Angels’ Lullaby, the virtuoso concluding movement of his much-loved Kindersonate in D major. This Christmas toccata quasi chitarra has the reputation of sending insomniac babies (and adults) peacefully to sleep more quickly than any other. Sleep well, and awake rejoicing, for the end of the climate scam is at hand.
In the light of the decision of the druidical director of the Harvard-Smithsonian observatory to send out “Happy Solstice” cards this year, here is a famous seasonal message to one and all drafted by my indefatigable U.S. attorneys (scholars and gentlemen all) from the leading Wall Street partnership of Sue Quick, Wyn Boult, Phil Banks & Hyde Good.
Dear Lord Monckton,
Thanks a lot for the poem, the waiver, and the music. Concerning laughing angels, a certain suspicion grows in my mind, since the lullaby and the sonata is nowhere to be found in the lists of Schubert piano compositions. Perhaps the spirit of Schubert has taken position of your faculties? If so, the Wiegenlied and the performance deserve double admiration and thanks!
Best wishes from a Norwegian Christmas with torrential rain, no “White Christmas” here,
Trygve Eklund
Well perhaps not too much of a mystery because even a piece as well known as Schubert’s IXth symphony; “The great” in C major, would not have been found in some lists of Schubert compositions, as apparently the publisher it was submitted to, failed to publish it and it almost got burned up in the trash.
Apparently it is to Johannes Brahms that we owe the discovery and the preservation of the Score of Schubert;s ninth.
The publisher dismissed the work as “unplayable.” Well in parts it may seem like it’s unplayable, but then musicians do adapt to the tasks composers set for them. Wish I had some of their talent.
But I can claim to have played without mistake, the Cesar Frank Opus 16 Fantasy in C Major from the six pieces for organ of 1862 on a giant four manual (plus pedals) dual (stereo) pipe organ in Palo Alto California. (couldn’t play it now, that was about 30 years ago.
G ruminescing !
Congratulations to Geoge Smith on driving a full-size organ. Nothing quite like it.
There was indeed a fire at Schubert’s publishers, Breitkopf und Haertel, which has made a notorious and formidable mess of the lists of Schubert’s works ever since. In particular, the Deutz catalog numbers are all over the shop.
I have a digitally-remastered copy of a very early recording of the Laughing Angels’ Lullaby (the Italians, beautifully, call it “La Ninna Nanna degli Angeli che Ride”) by the young Alfred Cortot in 1890, when he was just 13. It is slower, mellower, more legato and more meditative than my galloping Lisztian interpretation (seven minutes to my five minutes 45 seconds), and it displays all the delicacy of touch and gentle variation of tempo and dynamic range that are the hallmarks of the master. As far as I can discover, it has not been recorded since – until now. If there is enough interest, I shall ask our kind host to post it up next time I write here. It is long out of copyright.
I am working on recording the entire Kindersonate, which is known in Scotland as the Bairns’ Sonata. The first movement is a semi-strophic set of six “Ecossaisen im ehemaligen Stil” (Ecossaises in the old style) (i.e., in 3:4 time, for the Ecossaise was the precursor first of the Laendler and then of the waltz). The six dances are usually labeled as “Das Maedchen”, “Der Hirsch”, “Der Bergbach”, “Der Schmied”, “Die Daemmerung” and “Der Mond”. They tell the story of the day of the Annunciation set in a mythical Scottish landscape. The maiden in the Mother of God, and hers is the first dance as she skips out of her cottage to make her way to the village. At the end of her dance, a woodpecker (“der Specht”) takes up her song, but in a much simplified and very beautiful form. The woodpecker’s song, played with a gentle staccato, serves as the chorus between each dance and the next. The second and third dances, the Stag and the Mountain Burn, represent the Holy Spirit and His message to Mary respectively. The fourth dance, the Merry Blacksmith, signifies the message striking home, and the economy of line with which the ringing hammer of the smith is drawn gives one the sound of the smithy at once. During the fifth dance, the Twilight, Mary ponders the message in her heart, and the sleepy woodpecker (previously staccato but now languidly legato) echoes her thoughts. During the fifth dance, for the first time, there is a modulation away from the tonic: a brief and elegant visit to the dominant, for the bairns for whom the Kindersonate was written much prefer harmonic simplicity. Finally, the sixth Ecossaise signifies Mary’s acceptance of the message, as the moon rises and the world sleeps. This remarkable Ecossaise, after a few bars picking up the woodpecker’s sleepy song, consists of a charming interplay between just two notes, the tonic and its leader, over the mellow ostinato that runs through the entire movement.
The second or slow movement, though short, marks the passage of time between the Annunciation and the Nativity. In this very Celtic meditation, Schubert expands upon the exchange of ideas between the tonic, the dominant and the subdominant that was evident in the sixth Ecossaise. This movement, a little Nocturne, was unquestionably influenced by John Field, the Dublin-born composer who worked chiefly in London and invented the Nocturne.
But the crowing glory of the Kindersonate is the spectacular third movement, the brilliant toccata quasi chitarra posted here, in which the composer makes the piano sound like a guitar. The piece, which is murderously difficult to play but is well worth the effort, consists entirely of artfully-interleaved arpeggios with the simple melody barely obtruding above them, and is rare in that throughout the piece every chord is broken so that no two notes are ever played simultaneously. Here, all trace of the Celtic is suddenly and deliberately vanished, and we are transported straight to the high-Classical heavens, where the angels are rejoicing at the birth of the Lord of Life. The piece has all the hallmarks of Schubert: in particular, the exposition, development and ingenious re-use of a few simple figures explored thoroughly from every angle. The never-tedious repetitiveness and the absence of minor chords (again, deliberately intended for the ears of children) make this a swiftly sleep-inducing lullaby. It is perhaps the only lullaby in the toccata form. The extended coda is a particular delight. The piece can be played over and over again without any loss of its celestial magic.
Enjoy it, one and all, for we shall not hear its like again.
So great a card,
can you grant us a right to use (and abuse) reproduction ?
Please feel free to reuse both the text and the music. I’m sure Mr York will not mind his parody of the original English folk-song reaching a wider audience, and the greeting from my Wall Street lawyers is an expansion of an old idea. Since Schubert has long been merry in Heaven and I assert no performer’s copyright, feel free to circulate the music to anyone who will enjoy it, with a Merry Christmas from me.
Thanks a lot for your enlightening us on the history of this sonata. I hope you take it as a compliment that I regarded you as equal to Schubert.
🙂
Please do keep us posted as your recording effort proceeds, I for one am enough of a gambler to buy a copy of the CD sight unseen; since your wonderful rendition of a sample here is all the evidence I need that it would be a positive addition to my musical collection, and to my enjoyment of Schubert’s works. One of my treasured disks is “Winterreisse” with Dietrich Fischer Diskau, and Gerald Moore at the piano.
I should get my two manual Electronic organ out of storage, and have it repaired, so I can play it. I had to finger the Cesar Franck fantasy two different ways so I could play it both on my two manuals, and the church four manual. Of course the Franck Cavalle-Koll organ of St Clotilde is three manuals, which is all you really need to play all of his works. I never got through any others, but did learn several Widor Symphony movements.
G
“”””””…..
Monckton of Brenchley
December 27, 2017 at 3:28 am
Congratulations to George Smith on driving a full-size organ. Nothing quite like it …..”””””
The only thing I could imagine that comes close to matching “driving a full size organ” Would be driving the forward #1 16 inch 50 caliber gun turret of an Iowa Class battleship !
The one I played is a very fine instrument in a Methodist Church. Not like the great Organs of France, but still wonderful to have played.
G
the English folk-song The Vicar of Bray, who notoriously switched his religious allegiance with each new monarch.
Maybe this was he origin of the Bray cycle?
Javier?
Thank you for the waiver. I shall shamelessly plagarise it in next year’s Christmas newsletter.
A Winter Solstice Prayer
The dark shadow of space leans over us. . . . .
We are mindful that the darkness of greed, exploitation, and hatred
also lengthens its shadow over our small planet Earth.
As our ancestors feared death and evil and all the dark powers of winter,
we fear that the darkness of war, discrimination, and selfishness
may doom us and our planet to an eternal winter.
May we find hope in the lights we have kindled on this sacred night,
hope in one another and in all who form the web-work of peace and justice
that spans the world.
In the heart of every person on this Earth
burns the spark of luminous goodness;
in no heart is there total darkness.
May we who have celebrated this winter solstice,
by our lives and service, by our prayers and love,
call forth from one another the light and the love
that is hidden in every heart.
Amen.
From Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim by Edward Hays
Thank you.
And I join you in celebrating the birth (if even on the wrong day) of the one whose life and death and resurrection and return will finally, in the end, bring an end to this and all the rest of the World’s nonsense.
But in the meantime, carry on keep cutting at the head of this “Hydra”. 😎
In response to Gunga Din, the Good Book describes God the Father as the “God of Truth”, God the Son as “the Way, the Truth and the Life” and God the Holy Spirit as “The Spirit of Truth”. As one of the apocryphal books puts it, “Great is Truth, and mighty above all things.” The truth that manmade warming has been much exaggerated will soon be publicly demonstrated beyond all doubt. Have courage, therefore, and a good New Year to all.
Superbly played Lord Monckton. Season’s greetings and a guid New Year, sir.
My own favourite piece of Christmas music is “O Holy Night” sung by the incomparable Leontyne Price. I have played this every Christmas day since buying the record in the early 1960s.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8g5cpNUzyY&w=560&h=315%5D
You left out gluten-free.