What do reindeer, sheep, swans, partridges, elves, and a hippopotamus wrapped with a bow have in common? Well, they’re our musical gifts to you this holiday season as MAFB plays the ever-popular Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Philip Sparke’s Carol of the Shepherds, The Twelve Days of Christmas, I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas, Swan Lake, John Kazik’s Eviler Elves, and more.
About the Program
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Christmas Overture
The Christmas Overture was originally conceived as incidental music for a “poetic fairy drama” by Alfred Noyes, The Forest of Wild Thyme. More than just a potpourri of Christmas tunes, but cleverly integrating some famous carols like Hark the Herald Angels Sing and God Rest You, Merry Gentlemen into a pleasantly coherent work.
John Rox: I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas
I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas was performed by 10-year-old Gayla Peevey in 1953. The song peaked at number 24 on Billboard magazine's pop chart in December 1953. The Oklahoma City Zoo and a local newspaper, picking up on the popularity of the song and Peevey's local roots, launched the Gayla Peevey Hippo Fund so Peevey could be presented with an actual hippopotamus on Christmas! A 700-lb baby, Matilda was delivered from the Central Park Zoo on Christmas Eve and donated to the Oklahoma City Zoo.
Piotr Ilych Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake
It’s hard to believe that Swan Lake was an absolute failure at the time of its staging in 1877 since it is now one of the most popular ballets in the world. It was such a failure that the prima ballerina Anna Sobeshchanskaya commissioned another composer to write a pas de deux for the work. Tchaikovsky was rightfully furious and agreed to write another pas de deux but the stipulation was he had to match Marius Petipa’s existing choreography. She loved the resulting work and after many more revisions over the next two decades, Swan Lake became a fixture of the repertoire.
James Kazik: Eviler Elves
Elf On A Shelf sure has been naughty! James Kazik’s channeled cheeky impish energy into Eviler Elves. Originally written for trombone choir, of which you’ll still hear remnants, this reorchestrated version combines modern harmonies and devilish whimsy into an absolutely charming, atypical holiday selection.
Sonya Leonore Stahl: Sleigh Ride
Sonya Leonore Stahl’s “Sleigh Ride” from her larger work Symphonukkah is a mash-up of three traditional Hanukkah songs, “Chanukah, O Chanukah,” “Adom Olam,” and “Maoz Tzur (Rock of Ages).” MAFB is proud to give the world premiere of the band version of this movement a day after the full work was premiered by the Gainesville Orchestra.
Julie Giroux: Twelve Days of Christmas
Who needs or wants this many birds?!??!?!?! Regardless, this cumulative song has been a popular holiday tune ever since it was first introduced in 1780! Julie Giroux delights in playing with expectations and so you’ll hear some other tunes pop in as we add more and more onto the present pile.
Steve Reisteter: The Eighth Candle
The Eighth Candle was a crunch commission written in just three days. Steve Reisteter, the composer of the piece, is Roman Catholic though he cut his teeth playing clarinet and tárogató in Klezmer bands. The tunes, though they sound Hebraic, are of Reisteter’s own creation but are so close to actual sacred songs, that many Jewish band directors have contacted him asking where he originally found this music.
Robert Buckley: Iditarod
If you attended our 2022 holiday concert, you would have heard another piece from Robert Buckley’s Portraits of the North when we played “Arctic Fire.” This movement is energetic and captures the 1,000-plus mile dog race through the Alaskan tundra.
Johnny Marks: Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Though the Rankin/Bass stop-motion animated film is the most popular version of this tale of a socially outcast reindeer, the story of Rudolph dates from the 1930s. Johnny Marks’ music to that film has become so ingrained in public consciousness that we even parody the song by adding our own flair, like “LIKE A LIGHTBULB!”
Ray Allen, Sam Saltzberg, and Wandra Merrell: Dominick the Donkey
Dominick the Donkey is one of those tunes that was written because… well… capitalism. If Matilda from I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas was a smash, why wouldn’t Dominick be as popular? Perhaps all the mixed metaphors and tortured rhymes like “Josephine” and “Brooklyn” of this Lou Monte-sung novelty got in the way. At least Rudolph came along four years later to rescue us from this holiday travesty.
Philip Sparke: Carol of the Shepherds
Carol of the Shepherds is based on the hymn tune Quem Pastores Laudavere [Shepherds left their flocks a-straying] which dates back to the 14th century and is widely known throughout the Christian world. Although the melody has been set to a number of different texts in different countries it was originally a carol celebrating the Christmas story, in particular the visit of the angel Gabriel to the shepherds.
Robert Wendel: Caribbean Sleigh Ride
Let’s party! Grab some spiked eggnog, your sleigh bells, and jam out to this merengue by Robert Wendel, a protege of Hale Smith and the composer of the most famous sleigh ride of all time, Leroy Anderson!