| DAY 11 - THE MAGI ARE MOVING |
"Horizon" | |
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This selection isn't from a
Christmas album, but it goes well
(so I think) with the day's subject
matter. It's by Paul Schwartz,
a musical genius at creating
something new out of something old.
This cut is from his ARIA 2 CD,
which came out a few years
ago on the KOCH label.
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The distance from Ur, or that area
of Mesopotamia (Babylonia on the map - on the right),
where the wise men came from, to Bethlehem,
near Jerusalem on the left side of map, by the Mediterranean Sea,
is well over 500 miles, a journey of many weeks by camel -
following the trade routes from oasis to oasis across
the northern reaches of the Arabian Desert.
The Urantia Book says of these men:
"These priests from Mesopotamia had been told
sometime before by a strange religious teacher
of their country that he had had a dream in which
he was informed that 'the light of life' was about to
appear on earth as a babe and among the Jews.
And thither went these three teachers looking for
this 'light of life.' After many weeks of futile search
in Jerusalem, they were about to return to Ur
when Zacharias met them and disclosed his
belief that Jesus was the object of their quest and
sent them on to Bethlehem, where they found the babe
and left their gifts with Mary, his earth mother.
The babe was almost three weeks old
at the time of their visit."
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Sir Alec Guiness
reads the poem by T.S. Eliot (1808-1965),
a Nobel Prize in Literature winner with a bent toward
the religious and the philosophical. It's from a
1961 recording on the Folkways label, titled:
Christian Poetry and Prose: Selected and Read by Alec Guiness.
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"A cold coming we had of it,
just the worst of time of year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter."
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbert.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women.
And the night fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel at night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.
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Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wineskins.
But there was no information, and so we continued.
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (as you may say) satisfactory.
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All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This : were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt.
I had seen birth and death.
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
T.S. Eliot
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Here we have the poem with musical accompaniment,
and additional words/verse to tell the story. It's by Scott Miller
from his Christmas Gift digital album on Amazon, released in 2010
by F.A.Y Recordings.
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It's New Orleans style!
The Boilermaker Jazz Band
is actually from Pittsburg,
but they've got that
Bourbon Street sound.
It's from their CD
Swingin' the Season,
released in '07 on the
band name label.
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This is the famous
London Philharmonic
Orchestra, from a
Silverline Classics CD
released in 2008,
Chamber Orchestra
Christmas.
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Here's a wild take on
the song by a good son
of Erin named Reilley.
It's from his '08 CD
Kick Ass Celtic Christmas,
put out on the Oglio
Entertainment label.
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British author Henry Van Dyke's short story
The Other Wise Man was first published in 1895.
Since then it's been "done" in numerous stage adaptations,
radio and television dramas, and even a Hollywood production,
with Martin Sheen and Alan Arkin, where the title was changed to
"The Fourth Wise Man." The book is out of copyright, so Project Guttenberg
(among others) has an online free EBook copy, go to it here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19608/19608-h/19608-h.htm#2
Below is a radio drama of the story, starring Otto Kruger as host and
Jeff Chandler as Artaban - the other wise man,
first broadcast in December of 1949.
It's from the Family Theater series - "Classic Old Time Radio" -
available on the Radio Library label. The drama is a little less
than a half-hour long, so the 18.2 MB file
will take a while to download.
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THE FOURTH WISE MAN
Here's a slide show done by GThamban that's on YouTube.
It's photos with the text of the story of Artaban, the fourth wise man,
adapted here from the Van Dyke original. Great camel and desert shots!
Running time is 7:47.
http://www.youtube.com/user/gthamban#p/u/8/-IS58VSKB_k
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