Music for body and soul at Christmas time

A few Sundays ago I sat alone in the nave of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish Church on Sherbourne Street in Toronto.

This was an unusual experience for me because I am used to sitting in packed pews among great and vibrant throngs, marveling at the sight of a veritable human atlas of many colourful parts of the world. This time, on my way out of the church, I looked up the choir loft. An enormous organ glowered down on in the seeming sadness of faded glory. I could not resist reciting to myself Thomas Moore's lament for times gone by:

   "The harp that once
   through Tara's halls
   The soul of music shed
   Now hangs as mute as Tara's walls
   As if that soul were fled."

Silent the great organs may be, but we do have banquet halls of music on recordings for all kinds of listeners from earphoned modern hermits to concert-goers, and home listeners and viewers.

Here is a short list of recordings for the Christmas season designed for enjoyment when you escape the "ho ho mania" and the brouhaha of shops and streets In them, you can be free of misbehaving children and family philistines so that you can avoid becoming "so fagged, so cogged, so cumbered", as the blessed G.M. Hopkins said in his poem "The Golden Echo."

The recordings are of Masses and other kinds of spiritual music.

1. MISSA LUBA-an African Mass by the Muungano National Choir, Kenya, Philips 426 836-2

Here is a recording made in 1990 by Kenyans schooled in the Latin Mass. It is a milestone achievement in its combination of Eastern and Western harmonies in the prayers of the Mass from the Kyrie to the Agnus Dei. These enhance the drama of the Mass. The Catholic Mass is a drama, and for the Kenyans, the drama moves with the emotion of the Sanctus or the pain of the crucifixion section of the Credo.

(2) MISA CRIOLLA: Ariel Ramirez/Jose Carreras. Recorded in Cantabria, Spain, 1987. Philips 420 955-2

This is a wondrous work from composer Ariel Ramirez first recorded in Buenos Aires in 1964. It is another "take-home" Mass in Latin, this one charged with earth sounds in the rhythms of Argentina, Bolivia and Peru. The Sanctus in particular evokes for my wife and me Christmases in Mexico in the charmed city of San Miguel de Allende, where the spiritual still overrides the market place. By contrast, in downtown Toronto, we see down Yonge Street, a canyon of concrete temples of commerce.

3. BERNSTEIN -- Chichester Psalms--Carlton Classics DDD 30366-000 Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Conductor: Richard Hickox

This CD contains Gabriel Faure' s exquisite Requiem, OP.48. While it may not seem a Christmas item, it is one for all seasons. It omits the Day of Wrath--the Dies Irae, so there is no Last Judgment.

It appeals to those for whom Christmas is the anniversary of personal loss. It certainly speaks of peace and tranquility.

If you don't have a friendly record shop, Amazon.com is the best source for this fine music.

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