A Midwinter Night's Dream (CD)

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A Midwinter Night to Remember, November 1, 2009

By RogRev

I am a music-loving semi-retired pastor. Every year as Christmas nears, I look for recent recordings in which creative musicians reinterpret traditional carols or create new ones. When I find them, they enliven my appreciation and deepen my understanding of the holy season. The most wonderful collections that I have discovered in the past are Joan Baezs Noel, Kathy Matteas Good News and, in 2008, Sarah McLachlans Wintersong. This year, 2009, my most emotionally thrilling, intellectually challenging and spiritually uplifting discovery is Loreena McKennitts A Midwinter Nights Dream. Loreenas original modal music for "The Holly and the Ivy" turns the familiar melody upside down and makes the song sound very mystical. Loreena transports me back to when the early Christians adapted ancient nature symbols to express their vision of Jesus. Despite the objections of Roman churchmen, northern believers happily looked at the hollys white blossom as a symbol of Jesus purity. The red berry was His blood, the prickle was His thorny crown and the bitter bark was the gall offered to Him to drink on the cross. Loreenas music is "universal." It reflects the extent of Celtic culture from the time when Celts lived as far east as Galatia in modern Turkey. Loreenas setting of "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" places the singer in Asia, and the "gentlemen" are the Magi who visit the infant Jesus. The music reminds me also of Native American healing chants which have comforted me in the past. One paradox in this collection is that this gifted singer doesnt actually sing "In the Bleak Midwinter." Instead, Loreena and her musical companions play Gustav Holsts melody so exquisitely that I can hear Christina Rossettis text (which Sarah McLachlan sings on Wintersong) resounding clearly within me. And am I mistaken when I hear melodic echoes of the "Huron Carol" ("Twas in the moon of wintertime" when "The chiefs from far before him knelt with gifts of fox and beaver pelt") in Loreenas instrumental "Breton Carol?" Not all the songs on A Midwinter Nights Dream relate to Christmas. Loreenas lovely setting of Archibald Lampmans "Snow" is as beautiful as Elisabeth von Trapps singing of her own music to a very similar poem by Robert Frost, "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" on her album Poetic License. I first appreciated McKennitts music when I purchased Parallel Dreams on the recommendation of a friend who knew about the Huron component of my otherwise French and English ancestry. He also knew about my love for Celtic music and thought I would enjoy Loreenas "Huron Beltane Fire Dance." I did enjoy the piece, but I was more deeply moved by Loreenas singing and harp playing on the other songs. In 2008 I wrote that Sarah McLachlans interpretations of familiar religious and secular Christmas songs are different enough from the familiar versions that I actually find myself hearing the old words with renewed understanding. This year I realize that the same is even more strikingly true of A Midwinter Nights Dream. I 2008 I described Sarah McLachlans album as "melancholy transfigured by hope and peace." In 2009 I describe Loreena McKennitts as "contemplation enlivened by festivity." Both of them, along with the earlier Baez and Mattea albums, are timeless treasures.

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