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12/09/2022 03:58 PMThe Chester Meeting House will be filled with the sounds of Gregorian chants and Waes Hael caroling when the Cantica Nativitatis music event comes to town on Friday, Dec. 16.
The event is sponsored by the Chester Public Library as a family-fun event in celebration of the holiday season.
“When I read the description, I thought it would be something festive to bring to the town,” said Stephanie Romano, the director at the library. “Now that more and more people are getting out, I thought the Meeting House would be a perfect place to have this.”
The music of “Cantica Nativitatis,” translated literally from Latin as “songs of Christmas,” spans the history of Christmas-themed compositions across the second millennium. The performances will be led by musician and historian Richard Franklin Donohue, with a repertoire performed by carolers in German, Middle English, French, and Latin, accompanied by the harpsichord and portative pipe organ instruments.
“It’s just different from your traditional Christmas carols. We’re so hung up on the traditional carols we forget where these carols originated from. It just kind of makes me think of performances in large cathedrals,” Romano said.
Donohue holds a similar view on the historical aspect of the music in celebration of the holiday, wanting listeners to be exposed to a musical origin story that speaks to the religious and historical sides of the holiday.
“There’s three aspects to Christmas: the sacred aspect, the celebratory aspect, and then there's the commercial aspect. What we see is commercialism. Many people have not necessarily lost sight of the first two, but they’re not the first and foremost on their agendas,” said Donohue, who has seen thrilled reactions from people who have attended the Cantica Nativitatis event in the past.
The first piece Donohue will perform at the event is a Gregorian chant written in 990, with the last and newest song added to the setlist coming from the middle of the 19th century. He said the former piece strongly relates to the sacred and celebratory aspect of the holiday.
“The one that I’m doing comes out of the Vespers that is sung on Christmas morning in the Roman Catholic Church. The celebration, the feast day, is the birth of Jesus Christ. The text to the song is ‘Chrisus natus est,’ which means ‘Jesus is born.’ It doesn't get any more sacred than that.”
The ancient singing practice, which helped to lay the groundwork for Western music, even derives its notational and melodic elements from the chanting style of reading the Old Testament, creating a “mysterious” and “meditative” sound, according to Donohue.
“You had a couple people who couldn’t chant as high as the other people, so they sang them a little lower, and that’s how they discovered harmony. That turned into chords, and all of the sudden we have Western music,” said Donohue.
Waes Hael singing, a practice dating back to Middle Age England, are another featured part of the program, and another chance for listeners to experience history and celebration through song. "Wassailing" is the medieval type of caroling that evolved into the modern practice of singers going door-to-door, but actually has a very celebratory angle, as it was “sung by intoxicated farmers, wishing people luck for the coming year,” according to Donohue, who said the term "waes hael" comes from Old English, as a toast for good health.
“Around here, we are thinking of Christmas caroling. A lot of times, it would be the resident farmers going to the manor houses and thanking the lords what they gave them in the previous year, and wishing them luck for the next year,” Donohue said.
While alcohol will not be part of the event, it remains that the history of this upcoming holiday’s music and its centuries-old preceding forms be shared as a reminder of the sacred and traditional celebratory parts of Christmas.
“In a way, this program is a little bit of living history. A third of what [listeners] will come away with is a little bit more knowledge of the role that Christmas music has played in this tradition that’s now what we believe to be 2,000 years old.”
The event will begin at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 16 at the Chester Meeting House, with light refreshments offered.