A Holiday Sing-Along

The thirteenth and final piece in the concert is entitled A Holiday Sing-Along. It is a medley of four Christmas songs, written in 2002 by John Moss (see below) for chorus and band or as an audience sing-along.

The medley begins with a brief introduction, based on the last phrase of “Deck the Hall”, before launching into a full rendition of the song, set for singing by the audience or a choral arrangement written by Audrey Snyder.

Many centuries before the British Isles were Christianized, there was a winter festive called Yule or Yuletide. It was celebrated on or about the time of the winter solstice, the longest night of the year.

“Deck the Hall” (people often mistakenly “plural-ize” the word Hall but that is incorrect) is one of the joyful songs from those Yuletide celebrations. The words make no reference to the nativity, but tell us much about the customs of Yule. The lilting rhythm and fa-la-la’s suggest that the song was used for dancing, especially circle dancing.

After a brief interlude, the mood and tempo changes and the audience and band launch into “Jingle Bells”. James Pierpont (1822-1893) wrote “Jingle Bells” in 1857 for a Thanksgiving program at a church in Savannah, Georgia where he was the organist. The song was greeted with such enthusiasm that it was used again on Christmas day as postlude after the church service.

Since then, it has become one of our most popular Christmas songs, although it makes no mention of anything associated with Christmas (unless, like most of us in the northern latitudes, you associate snow with Christmas).

After another transition, and change in tempo and meter, we play and sing “O Christmas Tree”. Entitled “O Tannenbaum” in the original German, the modern lyrics were written in 1824, by the Leipzig organist, teacher and composer Ernst Anschütz (1780-1861). A Tannenbaum is a fir tree. The lyrics do not actually refer to Christmas, or describe a decorated Christmas tree. Instead, they refer to the fir's evergreen qualities as a symbol of constancy and faithfulness.

Anschütz based his text on a 16th-century Silesian folk song by Melchior Franck (1579-1639), “Ach Tannenbaum”. Joachim August Zarnack (1777–1827) in 1819 wrote a tragic love song inspired by this folk song, taking the evergreen, “faithful” fir tree as contrasting with a faithless lover. The folk song first became associated with Christmas with Anschütz, who added two verses of his own to the first, traditional verse.

The custom of the Christmas tree developed in the course of the 19th century, and the song came to be seen as a Christmas carol. Anschütz's version still had treu (true, faithful) as the adjective describing the fir's leaves (needles), harking back to the contrast to the faithless maiden of the folk song. This was changed to grün (green) at some point in the 20th century, after the song had come to be associated with Christmas. After one final transition, the band and audience launch into “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”.

In 1935, Oxford University Press published an elaborate four-part choral arrangement by Arthur Warrell under the title “A Merry Christmas”, describing the piece as a “West Country Traditional Song”. Warrell's arrangement is notable for using “I” instead of “we” in the lyrics; the first line is “I wish you a Merry Christmas”. It was subsequently republished in the collection Carols for Choirs (1961), and remains widely performed. The earlier history of the carol is unclear. It is absent from earlier collections of west-country carols in 1822, 1823 and 1833, as well as from the great anthologies of 1861 and 1864. It is also missing from The Oxford Book of Carols (1928). In the comprehensive New Oxford Book of Carols (1992), the editors describe it as “English traditional” and “[t]he remnant of an envoie much used by wassailers and other luck visitors”. No source or date is given.

The greeting “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year” is recorded from 1740. The English custom of performing inside or outside homes in return for food and drink is illustrated in the short story The Christmas Mummers (1858) by Charlotte Yonge, in which a group of boys run to a farmer's door and sing:

“I wish you a merry Christmas

And a happy New Year,

A pantryful of good roast-beef,

And barrels full of beer.”

After they are allowed in and perform a play, the boys are served beer by the farmer's maid.

The origin of this Christmas carol lies in the English tradition wherein wealthy people of the community gave Christmas treats to the carolers on Christmas Eve, such as “figgy pudding” that was very much like modern-day Christmas puddings. A variety of nineteenth-century sources state that, in the West Country of England, “figgy pudding” referred to a raisin or plum pudding, not necessarily one containing figs.

Arranger John Moss (1948-2010) was active nationwide as a composer, arranger, and orchestrator in a wide variety of musical styles and formats. As a composer, he had an extensive background creating original music for documentary, educational, and promotional films. As an arranger, he provided music for many live large-scale musical revues and production shows. John created the arrangements for Speak Low, a CD featuring Las Vegas trombonist John Haig with a 46-piece studio orchestra.

John's educational background included undergraduate study in instrumental music at Central Michigan University and graduate work in theory and composition at Michigan State University. He taught at both public school (band and choir) and university (theory) levels in Michigan. John's music is a major contribution to the band and orchestra catalog of educational music publisher Hal Leonard Corporation and he has several hundred published works to his credit.

He also served as arranger for the Disney educational project "Magic Music Days," where young performing musicians are introduced to the film scoring/recording process. He accepted numerous school band and orchestra commissions, and enjoyed writing for the Detroit Symphony Pops, the Canadian Brass, and the Detroit Chamber Winds. In 2004, John and three fellow orchestrators transcribed approximately 90 minutes of orchestral music by film composer John Williams for a Kennedy Center concert featuring the United States Marine Band, with Mr. Williams conducting.

The music for a Holiday Sing-Along was provided for the band by Erin and Joe Wolleat.