SOUNDTRACK: JOYCE DiDONATO-“Silent Night” (#SingForToday, Princeton University Concerts, December 21, 2020).
I first heard of Joyce DiDonato from an NPR session many years ago. I loved that she had a gorgeous voice but was not too precious about herself or her music. She had a lot of fun.
I can’t imagine the chills you would feel hearing her live.
Here’s the next best thing. In conjunction with Princeton University Concerts and University Musical Society of the University of Michigan, Joyce created the #SingForToday series.
The third entry is this gorgeous version of “Silent Night,” performed by Joyce DiDonato and Àlex Garrobé on guitar.
Joyce has a lovely mezzo-soprano voice and the accompanying guitar by Garrobé sounds classical in its soft resonance without being fast or complicated.
She sings the songs straight through. Then for a second round, she changes the words: “peace, peace, peace on earth…” I’ve never heard this before and I don’t think it’s part of the song normally.
For the final sing thorough, she she sings over herself with both voices doing the different lyrics in a kind of fugue. She also adds in some harmony.
This has always been one of my favorite Christmas songs, i think it is so beautiful. This version is just amazing.
[READ: December 21, 2020] “Our Day of Grace”
This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar. This is my fifth time reading the Calendar. I didn’t know about the first one until it was long out of print (sigh), but each year since has been very enjoyable. Here’s what they say this year
You know the drill by now. The 2020 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories from some of the best writers in North America.
This year’s slipcase is a thing of beauty, too, with electric-yellow lining and spot-glossed lettering. It also comes wrapped in two rubber bands to keep those booklets snug in their beds.
As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check back here to read an exclusive interview with the author.
It’s December 21. Jim Shepard, author of The Book of Aron, cannot find a stamp. [Click the link to the H&O extras for the story].
This story is a series of letters written near the end of the Civil War. There is a Southern woman and her beau–a soldier on the front. They write to each other although their letters do not always overlap. He references another soldier, C.W. We see the letters that C.W.’s wife writes to him and we see in her letters that he does not write back–as she gets more and more dismayed.
I became rather invested in the stories in the letters, but the soldiers were so anti-North (and pro slavery) that I didn’t actually like any of them and was not sad when they were beset by misfortune.
Although it is amazing to see the kind of sophisticated language that was used back then in letters. The South has become so stereotyped as hicks with poor language skills and yet you get lines like
Your mother says she worries about my superintendence of our home
and
I wish I could control this wayward disposition. I accommodate my low spirits like communion with a congenial friend.
Boy our language has really shriveled.
In the link above, Shepard say that one particular line comes from a real letter from the Civil War
“The breach between us is so wide that by the war’s end the South can only be all Yankees or no Yankees at all.”
As we see what our country has turned into, perhaps it would have been better if there had been no Civil War at all and we just let the South go.
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