Music: Sun Dec 24 (10:00am)

Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos immortalizes a popular indigenous legend in his piano work As três Marias, in which universal harmony is embodied in the joyous playing of three young children. He relates the tale as follows in the score:
       Once there were three little girls, “The Three Maries of Earth,” who romped and played in the countryside of Brazil. They were always happy and the best of friends. Smilingly they traveled all the parts of life together.

            That this trinity might serve as a perpetual symbol of the union of humanity, Destiny has preserved them as eternal stars in the heavens to illuminate the path for the other children of Earth.

            Other musical selections include two numbers from Franz Liszt’s charming Christmas Tree cycle, written for the composer’s granddaughter. The Opening Music is a solo piano harmonization of a Catalan Christmas carol sung last week by Kim Force, and the Offertory is a set of traditional Rumanian Christmas carols in strikingly modernist harmonic garb by the Unitarian composer Béla Bartók. One of Johann Sebastian Bach’s touching Chorale-Preludes is featured in the Interlude, a work originally for organ transcribed by the British pianist Harriet Cohen. Read on for programming details, and consider returning to CUUC at 5:15pm Sunday evening for gathering music and then our annual Christmas Eve service, featuring trumpeter Kenneth Kraut, the CUUC Adult and Children’s Choirs, and yours truly.

Centering Music: Adam Kent, piano
As três Marias

 1. Alnitah; 2. Alnilam; 3. Mintika

                               Heitor Villa-Lobos

From The Christmas Tree

            5. Scherzoso Lighting the Tree

            9. Old Provençal Carol

                              Franz Liszt

Opening Music:
Homenaje a Federico Mompou: Que li darem?                                               
                                                Joaquin Nin-Culmell

Offertory:
Rumanian Christmas Carols, Series I

                                                Béla Bartók

Interlude:
Beloved Jesu, We Are Here

                                                Johann Sebastian Bach, arr. by Harriet Cohen