“’Tis the Season to be . . .” . . . well . . . going to holiday concerts, of course! (Or, if you’re a musician, ‘tis the season to be performing in holiday concerts!) Santa Cruz county is blessed with multiple seasonal musical offerings at this time of year. To give just a few examples I am aware of for last Saturday, the afternoon had a well-attended Christmas concert by the Concertino Strings Orchestra, the evening had one of the Santa Cruz Chorale’s ever popular “Christmas with the Chorale” concerts in Holy Cross and in between were the outdoor “Living Nativity” at Messiah Lutheran Church on High Street, and the “Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols” at Redeemer Anglican Church. Audiences that want traditional music, especially choral music and music from the Renaissance and Baroque eras, are well provided for. However, one audience the plethora of holiday musical activity in Santa Cruz had not catered to in previous years was people who want to enjoy music for full orchestra. This is what the Santa Cruz Symphony excellently provided this last weekend with their first ever holiday pops concerts. Unfortunately, the concerts clashed with the Santa Cruz Chorale concerts. This had no effect at all on attendance at the Chorale concerts (Holy Cross was completely full for the Sunday afternoon Chorale concert I went to), but attendance in the Civic was definitely far smaller than usual for Santa Cruz Symphony concerts; many sections of the Civic has almost nobody in them.
The good news is that the disappointing attendance did not dampen festivities at all. The orchestra’s Board of Directors and the Symphony League had outdone themselves in creating a holiday spirit. This was apparent even before entering the hall. In the foyer one could take a selfie with Santa Claus, Mrs. Claus, and a mischievous-looking elf. Santa was played by well-disguised orchestra board member Dave Kramer-Urner, Santa’s wife by Dave’s real-life wife, Mary Anne Kramer-Urner, and the elf in a very cute costume proved to be none other than Symphony Board of Directors President Deborah Bronstein!
Inside the auditorium there was red and green lighting shining on the audience and onto the back wall behind the brass. There were bright LED lights in the shape of a Christmas tree behind the horns, a glowing Frosty the Snowman in the corner above the percussion, and a spot lit pile of presents behind the second violins. Everyone was in a good spirits. The orchestra’s strict all-black dress code of recent years had been relaxed. Players were cheerfully dressed up, often in holiday colors. Festive neckties and colorful blouses, skirts and dresses abounded. Timpanist Kumiko Ito and percussionist Kris Lou wore reindeer antlers. Many string players had little Santa hats on the scrolls of their instruments and Steve Zielinski had one on the neck of his bass clarinet. If I were to give an award for “best-dressed player” I would give it to principal percussionist Norman Peck dressed as a very distinguished Dickensian-looking gentleman in a top hat. When asked whether he was any particular character, he gave just a two-word reply: “Bah! Humbug!” (I don’t think he really has a Scrooge personality, but who knows, if the orchestra needs to reduce costs, Norman just might be able to offer some suggestions!)
The concert opened with “Christmas Festival” by the great American master of light music, Leroy Anderson. Unfortunately for orchestras, the vast majority of Christmas and Hanukkah music has words. The texts fall into two broad categories. The first consists of texts about events being celebrated: the birth of Jesus in the case of Christmas, and the 164 BCE rededication of the temple in Jerusalem in the case of Hanukkah. The second category consists of texts describing celebrations of those events, such as decking halls with holly for Christmas or eating latkes at Hanukkah. To the latter category should be added lyrics about things such as sleigh rides that have become associated with seasonal celebrations. A natural solution to the problem of not having words in purely instrumental pieces is to put together a medley of well-known tunes because there is a good likelihood that listeners will recall at least some of the words. This is exactly what Anderson did.
“Christmas Festival” is a whirlwind medley of songs and carols in which the religious and the party aspects of Christmas are freely mixed. Tunes follow in rapid succession with at most a short transition between each. It was a great way to start a holiday concert and the whole orchestra got a good work out. The trombones and tuba start “Joy to the world, the Lord is come” in octaves, but the trumpets and woodwinds are eager to “Deck the halls with boughs of holly” Everyone quickly settled on finishing “Joy to the world” first before the woodwinds got to deck their halls. The strings abruptly switched to “God rest you, merry gentleman”, but then there was another rapid switch, this time to a brisk “Good King Wencelas looked out”. The tempo then slowed to a more dignified pace as the strings took up Mendelssohn’s “Hark the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn king”. The woodwinds join in for the line “Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled” and the brass came in as the angelic host proclaiming, “Christ is born in Bethlehem!” (angels need trumpets!) Somewhat surprisingly, Anderson now manages to quickly calm the mood for fragments of “Silent night” for strings and harp. As this died away, the sound of sleigh bells starts up. The violas and second violins dashed through the snow to the tune of “Jingle bells”. The entire orchestra joined in, and we got shouts of “Ho! Ho!” and a “Hey!” at the end. As this climaxes, unison trombones switched to powerfully intoning “O come, all ye faithful” to lively counterpoint by the rest of the orchestra. Anderson gives an interesting orchestration. For example, to the final line of the chorus (“O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord”) he adds a rapid running bass for tuba (Forrest Byram) and bass trombone (Douglas Thorley). The piece then ended triumphantly to great applause back where it started with “Joy to the world”.
If we go beyond relatively recent medleys such as Anderson’s, the repertoire of the modern symphony orchestra (essentially a 19th century development), is lacking significant music about Christmas. There are no orchestral equivalents of choral masterpieces such as the O Magnum Mysterium settings of Victoria, Giovanni Gabrieli or Morten Lauritsen, or of Schutz’s Ach Herr, du Schöpfer aller Ding. However, there is major orchestral music going with stories set at Christmas time. The orchestra next played an excerpt from one such work, the Polonaise from Act IV of Rimsky-Korsakov’s light-hearted opera “Christmas Eve”. (The plot is far removed from the Christmas story and Christianity; the story is merely set in a Ukrainian village on Christmas night.) The polonaise is full of the colorful, rich orchestration Rimsky-Korsakov is famous for. Despite being unfamiliar to the audience, it was well received.
More contemplative music was provided by a staple of Christmas concerts: the beautiful 1934 “Fantasia on Greensleeves”, arranged by Ralph Greaves from Ralph Vaughan Williams’s 1929 opera “Sir John in love”. The original 1584 words of “Greensleeves” have no connection to Christmas but the tune had become associated with Christmas in England as early as 1686 and by the 19th century was commonly printed with Christmas words. It is best known today as the carol “What child is this?” Greaves arranged the setting from the entr’acte to the final scene of the opera. The fantasia began with a dreamy flute solo played by principal flute Sarah Benton with a beautiful harp accompaniment played by Jennifer Cass. The violas, doubled by the second violins, introduce the tune of “Greensleeves” to a delicate accompaniment by the rest of the strings and rich harp chords. A contrasting middle sections starts with violas and ‘cellos in unison introducing the English folk song “Lovely Jane”, which Greaves adapted from a duet earlier in the opera. This tune was continued with second flute Derek Yih joining Benton in a delightful pastoral duet.
The full orchestra returned for Symph-Hanukkah by long-time Stockton Symphony conductor and noted arranger Peter Jaffe. It is a medley of some of the most popular Hanukkah melodies. As with “Christmas Festival”, the lyrics are a mixture of descriptions of what is being commemorated and of the celebratory activities. To my mind, Jaffe does a much better and more coherent job of treating Hanukkah than Anderson did in treating Christmas. After a brief rousing crescendo, Jaffe starts with the majestic hymn Ma’oz Tzur (“Rock of Ages, let our song praise your saving power”) sung at Hanukkah after the lighting of the festival lights. The orchestra then switches to a Klezmer-style arrangement of Mi y'malel (“Who can retell the mighty feats of Israel?”) describing the restoration of the temple. The clarinets and a violin solo (Nancy Zhou) were featured. A brief moment of solemnity by the ‘cellos and basses led into two renditions of Hanukkah chag yafeh (“Hanukkah, wonderful holiday”) with the theme played first as a flute solo and then as an oboe solo by principal oboe Bennie Cottone. This was followed by the strings richly playing the liturgical blessing over the candles for each night of Hanukkah (Baruch Atah, Adonai Eloheinu = “Blessed are You, Our God, Ruler of the Universe”) and the full orchestra repeating the melody. The texts of the remaining songs Jaffe sets are concerned with the festivities of Hanukkah. First comes the lively S'vivon, sov sov sov (“Dreidel, spin, spin, spin. Hanukkah is a nice holiday!”) A brief, loud timpani solo by Kumiko Ito then led the orchestra into the very upbeat Yiddish children’s song Oy Chanukah, best known through the English version with the words “Oh Hanukah! Come light the menorah. Let's have a party. We'll all dance the hora. Gather 'round the table, we'll give you a treat!”. An exciting accelerando and mixture of tunes brings Symph-Hanukkah to a thrilling close and a final shout of “Hey!” The audience was left in no doubt that it was time to enthusiastically applaud!
The first half of the concert concluded with a recent orchestral arrangement by Canadian composer Daniel Barthomew-Poyser of the traditional South African spiritual Hlonolofatsa. The song became popular among gospel and world music choirs following the release of a 2005 recording by the Soweto Gospel Choir. The entire, short, repetitive text in the Sesotho language translates as “Bless everything in the name of the Father”. Choirs sing the song only accompanied by drums and, as far as I know, Barthomew-Poyser’s piece is the only orchestral work drawing on the song. The orchestra’s percussionists provided some good drumming and there were prominent solos by Sarah Holzman (piccolo), Irving Santana (principal viola) and Erin Wang (principal ‘cello). A boisterous conclusion and an unexpected final shout of “Hlonolofatsa!” by the entire orchestra brought the first half of the concert to a rousing conclusion. (I do have to admit though that my personal preference is for the many gospel choir interpretations of Hlonolofatsa rather than this orchestral version.)
The second half was devoted primarily to selections from Tchaikovsky’s most widely performed ballet, The Nutcracker. The plot is not about Christmas, but the action takes place on Christmas Eve at and after a German children’s Christmas party. The orchestra began with the “miniature overture” which sets the scene for the children’s party. Tchaikovsky achieves a delightfully light and airy effect in the overture by completely omitting the ‘cellos and double basses, by confining the horns and bassoons to their upper registers, and having the lowest part taken by the violas. The children’s march from the Christmas party followed. Maestro Daniel Stewart chose to follow this with the Dance of the Reed Flutes (“Mirlitons”) and then the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, where Kiefer Taylor played the celeste part. The bassoons (Michelle Keem and Iain Forgey) then began their gruff low ostinato to the “Tea” dance. The most substantial piece was the start of the Grand pas de deux, the emotional climax of Act II where the Sugar Plum Fairy and her prince dance together. Tchaikovsky did not include this in his suite of music from The Nutcracker, but I thought that including it in the concert was an excellent choice. The ending of it is so powerful that the audience applauded enthusiastically even though the brisk Cossack Trepak dance was still to come.
The orchestra ended with Leroy Anderson’s most performed piece, his celebrated “Sleigh Ride”, a staple of holiday programs. The percussion section had fun providing the jingling of sleigh bells, the crack of the whip, and a steady clip-clop of the horses’ hooves (temple blocks played by Ebenezar Scrooge.) Principal trumpet Alan Matteri provided a perfect horse whinny to end the ride (a famous effect achieved by half closing the valves on the trumpet and violently shaking the instrument). The audience was wildly enthusiastic.
But things were not quite over. As the last thing, Santa and his two assistants, who all proved to be very good singers, came up front to lead us all in three holiday songs: “Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer” (thankfully with the words projected on the screen up front for those of us who had forgotten the order of the names of Santa’s reindeer!), “Jingle bells”, and finally, “We wish you a Merry Christmas”. Thus, a fun evening for everybody came to a jolly close.
