Cal Performances presents All Is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914 featuring Cantus
2014-12-04
First Congregational Church
2345 Channing Way, Berkeley, CA
8:00 PM, Thursday, December 4, 2014

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2014 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2014 event list! ☸ On to the next event!

[8:04 PM lights down, announcements]

1. [8:05 PM] God Rest You Merry
2. [8:08 PM] As Joseph Was a-Walking
3. [8:09 PM] The First Nowell
4. [8:12 PM] Coventry Carol
5. [8:14 PM] I Saw Three Ships
   [8:16 all off briefly, then back]

1. [8:20 PM] Will Ye Go to Flanders?, (Scottish folksong, arr. Erick Lichte)

1. [8:22 PM] Alexander’s Ragtime Band, (1911) by Irving Berlin (1888–1989) ¢
2. [8:23 PM] God Save the King, (English traditional) ¢
3. [8:25 PM] Good-bye-ee, (1917) by R. P. Weston (1878–1936) and Bert Lee (1880–1946) ¢
4. [8:26 PM] It’s a Long Way to Tipperary, (1912) by Jack Judge (1872–1938) and Harry Williams (1874–1924)
5. [8:27 PM] Les Godillots, arranged by Paul Briollet and Eugène Rimbault, based on a traditional French song

1. [8:30 PM] Pack Up Your Troubles, (1915) by George Henry (1880–1951) and Felix Powell (1878–1942) ¢
2. [8:33 PM] The Old Barbed Wire, (English traditional) ¢
3. [8:33 PM] I Want to Go Home, (1917) by Lieutenant Gitz Rice ¢
4. [8:35 PM] Deutschlandlied, (1797) by Franz Joseph Haydn (1732–1809)
5. [8:35 PM] Keep the Home-Fires Burning, (1914) by Ivor Novello (1893–1951) ¢
6. [8:38 PM] O Come, O Come Emmanuel, (Twelfth-century plainchant)

1. [8:39 PM] Christmas in the Camp, by Harrington and Scott
2. [8:39 PM] We Wish You a Merry Christmas, (English traditional carol)
3. [8:40 PM] Die Wacht am Rhein (1840), by Karl Wilhelm (1815–1873)
4. [8:41 PM] Christmas Day in the Cookhouse, (English traditional) ¢
5. [8:42 PM] O Tannenbaum, (traditional German carol, arr. Timothy C. Takach)

1. [8:45 PM] Silent Night, (1818) Franz Xaver Gruber (1787–1863) (arr. Lichte)
2. [8:53 PM] Angels We Have Heard on High, (French traditional) ¢
3. [8:55 PM] Bring a Torch, Jeannette, Isabella, (French carol) ¢
4. [8:56 PM] In Dulci Jubilo, (German carol) ¢
5. [8:58 PM] Wassail, by Erick Lichte, based on traditional texts
6. [9:00 PM] Minuit chrétiens (O Holy Night), (1847) Adolphe-Charles Adam (1803–1856), harmonized by Erick Lichte
7. [9:03 PM] Will Ye Go to Flanders? (reprise), (Scottish folksong, arr. Lichte)
8. [9:04 PM] Es ist ein Ros entsprungen, (German traditional) ¢
9. [9:05 PM] Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, (1597) by Philipp Nicolai (1556–1608), arr. Lichte
10. [9:11 PM] Good King Wenceslas, Piæ Cantiones ¢

1. [9:13 PM] Auld Lang Syne (Scottish folksong, arr. Takach)

1. [9:15 PM] The Last Post (English bugle call – played over the PA from a recording)
2. [9:16 PM] Silent Night (reprise), (1818) Franz Xaver Gruber (1787–1863) (arr. Lichte) [show ends 9:17 PM, all off, back for the ovation, then off up the aisle into the lobby to mingle and sign CDs by 9:18 PM]

Cantus

• Zachary Colby: tenor vox;
• Chris Foss: bass vox;
• Matthew Goinz: baritone vox;
• Samuel Green: bass vox;
• Aaron Humble: tenor vox;
• Blake Morgan: tenor vox;
• Paul J. Rudoi: tenor vox;
• Shahzore Shah: tenor vox;
• Matthew Tintes: baritone vox.

• Patrick Bailey: reader;
• Matt Rein: reader;
• David Roberts: reader.

• Erick Lichte: arranger;
• Peter Rothsetin: creator, director;
• Timothy C. Takach: arranger.

Songs marked by ¢ have been harmonized by Cantus

Easy parking again, in the same block as this afternoon. Yay! I am grateful for small miracles!

Because the songs were not always distinctly demarked, and sometimes the stops and starts were obscured by the readings, tonight's timings should be considered less reliable than usual.

As in past visits, Candid Pitt together a highly structured program, in this case augmented by three actors who read from a selection of letters and diary entries from soldiers of both sides in the first World War. While the readings were quite interesting, I wasn't so happy to have the done over the. Singing of Cantus, and in more than one case, this obscured the end/start of a tune listed on the program. Surprisingly, the program did not directly reference these readings, though the program included a reference list as a sort of postscript.

In any case, it was a moving event, both for reminding us of the terrible horror of that war, and for bringing a remembrance of the first Christmas of that event, when the soldiers and enlisted men exchanged greetings and gifts of brotherhood in celebration of Christian tradition before being coerced back to the ordinary business of killing enforced by the officers running the war effort.

Way cool!

My only quibble was the use of a pre-recorded part for the bugle call at the end … was it really too difficult to find a live musician to produce that part? I would have preferred to hear that call from a performer blowing in the choir, or at the back of the hall instead of over the PA, but my guess is that the cost of including another member on tour was too high. Sigh. Budgetary realism is nearly always the enemy of artistic expression!

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2014 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2014 event list! ☸ On to the next event!