Mahlerman brings you a special festive edition of our regular Sunday music feature… and plans your Boxing Day so you don’t have to…
Too cold for Midnight Mass? Or did you road test a couple of Ian Buxton’s whisky suggestions – just to cut the phlegm? Fear not, just click below for Harold Darke’s wonderful arrangement of In The Bleak Mid-Winter, from the lilting original by Gustav Holst. Based on a poem by Christina Rossetti, this is a regular X-Factor winner with choirmasters the world over, with good reason. Here, the Winchester Cathedral Choir do what they do best.
Before you settle down to be zombified by TV, you will probably endure or enjoy a spectacular meal that has taken days to prepare and will take an hour to eat. You wouldn’t want either of these nutters anywhere near your own kitchen but, aided by a fizzing performance of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro Overture, the Nederlands Dans Theater and Czech choreographer Jiri Kilian transform a Chaplinesque sketch into a stunning dance spectacular.
Slumping onto the sofa, gasping for breath, a word of warning. Eastenders Omnibus and another outing for Genevieve is fine – or even, over at Nige Towers, the Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special. But too much of it will numb the brain. The American experimental film maker Godfrey Reggio made Evidence in 1995 to music by his friend Philip Glass. This gentle nudge about TV’s power, shot on 35mm, has a bunch of Italian kids mesmerized by the Disney film Dumbo.
After the feed and the telly you might yearn for a silent night – or even Silent Night. Let everybody’s favourite hobo Tom Waits take you there in his signature ‘I’ve just picked myself out of the gutter’ style.
Some lovely seasonal variations there, Mm.