Christmas is Coming

Word & Song by Anthony Esolen

Advent is here, and so are our Christmas offers at Word & Song! Now through Epiphany new paid, gift, and upgraded subscriptions are 25% off.

We need and appreciate your support!

As I have mentioned before, Sometimes a Song is written by that most prolific of composers, Anonymous. Most of what we know as folk tunes were written by that same fellow (also known by his nickname, “Anon”). When it comes to bringing together poems (or in the case of this week’s song lyrics, nursery rhymes) and music and then passing those along through the generations not by recordings but by general knowledge, the result may be many variations on a single song.
We call it folk music when a song seems to have sprung from a time so distant no one can really trace it and yet has become known widely in an area, a nation, and perhaps even around the world. Word & Song readers of a certain age will undoubtedly recognize my choice for this week as a carol once commonly sung at Christmastime in all English-speaking lands. I believe I first learned the song as a school child, in music classes I look back on with great fondness now, so culturally and socially formative they were. And it wasn’t that we merely learned carols and anthems and folk songs in school, either. For “Christmas is Coming” is not just a folk song like any other: it is a special kind of folk song called a round, and a round is a subset of what in formal music is called a canon.
I hope that in our times little children are still taught to sing rounds in school, but my experience (and this may be only my experience) tells me otherwise. How many of you remember singing rounds in school? Raise your hand if you do! Yes, in the classroom — not just in a school choir — we sang what most folks haven’t heard in decades and decades, a special kind of musical canon simple enough for children to master but enjoyable for people of all ages even with no formal training. A canon is a composition wherein a tune is repeated over and over with different singers or instruments or sections of performers coming in a different times like an echo, and yet blending harmoniously. And that’s why teaching children to sing in rounds is such a wonderful way to introduce them to harmony and choral singing together in parts.
I said that a round is a special form of a canon, sometimes called an infinite or a perpetual canon, because as long as the singers wish to go on, the song can last indefinitely. Do you remember singing “Three Blind Mice” in school, or “Frere Jacques” (for us English speaking children that was FRE-rah JAH-kah and would perhaps be our first exposure to the wonderful language known as French)? The teacher told us that we were singing in rounds, with with the class usually divided into two or three groups, and she would point to each group when their turn was to begin. And it was fun, and usually ended only when enough of the kids had lost their way to leave everyone breathless with laughter. Music and laughter are good for the soul.
By now our regular readers know that I try very hard to present each song in what seems to me to be the best overall (and available) performance of it — and that the process of choosing the version sometimes takes me all week. Other times the song and a particular singer or performer are so linked as almost to admit of no choice at all. Today I will be honest: I hit the wall searching for a “straight” version of “Christmas is Coming” sung as a round. I heard a few poor attempts, a lot of choral arrangements of the song without the round, and very fortunately stumbled upon a combination of the two, recorded by the very popular mid-century singer, Harry Belafonte performing the carol straight (mostly!) accompanied by a special group of folk singers who sang with him for over ten years. I’d never before today heard this version, recorded in 1958. In those days, every singer worth listening to recorded a Christmas album, even Elvis, the King of Rock ‘N Roll. Harry Belafonte was at base a folk singer. He first popularized Calypso music in America, and made a great career for himself as an actor and a singer of all sorts of popular music, including jazz standards. Some of you may remember him for the charming “Banana Boat Song,” which he recorded in 1956 (and which I hope to do here some day). That song put him on the map of American music, reaching number 5 on the charts. I think his love of folk music is evident in the arrangement of our song for today.
I hope you will enjoy Harry Belafonte’s “Christmas is Coming,” accompanied by The Belafonte Singers. And please listen carefully, for the singers are indeed singing a round around Mr. Belafonte.

Thanks for reading Word & Song by Anthony Esolen. Please share this post to help us reach a wider audience with our work. And if you can, please subscribe or give a gift subscription during our Advent and Christmas special.

Share

Upgrade or Gift Subscription Discount

---

For your convenience, here are printable gift certificates which can be used for presentation. Gift subscriptions can be scheduled to begin on whichever date you choose.