Getting their Goat - Ethical Christmas Gifts a Blessing or a Curse?

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The Creators of Christmas Carols

They talk of shepherds, wise men and a babe in a cradle, of bleak winters, towns called Bethlehem and silent nights. Nearly everyone knows a collection of Chistmas Carols. From bastardised versions in school assembly halls to choirs in shopping centres, TV and radio stations or church services. At the festive time of the year it is impossible to do without them but who are the artists behind these well known Carols?
The question came to me during Saint Andrew’s yearly Parish Church Festival of Lessons and Carols as I glanced down at Once in Royal David’s City. A poet myself, I am fascinated to discover that the carol was originally written as a poem by an Irish poet and hymn writer Cecil Frances Alexander. The carol was first published in 1848. In 1849 it was set to music by a British songwriter and organist Henry Gauntlet.
　

　‘Once in Royal David’s City

Stood a lowly cattle shed…’

Next we have Silent Night (1816) the words were originally written in Austrian by a Roman Catholic priest named Joseph Mohr. In 1818 Franz Xaver Gruber, an Austrian headmaster and organist of a primary school in Arnsdorf was asked by Mohr to set a poem he had written to music. Un fortunately that Christmas the organ was out of service so Gruber arranged the carol Stille Nacht for guitar.
In 1859 second Bishop of Florida John Freeman Young translated the carol into English version we are familiar with today.

Christina Rossetti is known for her poems ‘Goblin Market’ and a love poem entitled ‘Remember’. She is also remembered for the lyrics to In the Bleak Midwinter which was written around 1870 following a request from a magazine to pen a Christmas poem. The carol was set by Gustav Holst in 1906 and by Harold Edwin Darke in 1909. Darke’s setting was deemed best Christmas Carol by experts in 2008.

　
The tune of Adeste Fideles or O Come all ye Faithful is accredited to John Francis Wade who lived much of his life amongst exiled English Catholics in France, having escaped the Jacobite rising (1745). He was both a hymnist and teacher of music.
It is not known for certain who wrote the text for this carol but various orders of monks have been considered. The English words as we know them today are a translation from Latin by both William Oakaley and Thomas Brooke, first published in 1852.
　
　

Oh come all ye faithful

Joyful and triumphant…’

‘In the bleak midwinter

frosty winds made moan…’

　

‘Silent Night, holy night

All is Calm, all is Bright…’

Voice of an Angel Duped by Murdoch?

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Singer Charlotte Church told the Leveson enquiry (set up to explore the behaviour of the media in light of the recent phone hacking scandal) that Rupert Murdoch offered her positive media coverage in return for a free performance of  ‘Pie Jesu’ at his wedding to Wendy Deng eleven years ago. News International disputed the claims, saying that Charlotte performed at Murdoch’s wedding as a surprise for the media mogul.

The Welsh born singer who shot to fame on This Morning  and the Big Big Talent Show (1997) states that she was pressured into waiving the wedding fee by advisers who insisted on the value of Murdoch’s influence as opposed to  the £100,000 she would alternatively receive. 13 year old Charlotte would have preferred to have taken the money and spent it on Tamagotchis.

Charlotte Church implied that in spite of her free concert,  Murdoch’s papers still allowed her and her family  to be  a victim of predatory paparazzi and illegal phone hacking. Aged 15 one newspaper ran a countdown to the time she was sixteen and old enough to have sex. On another occasion there was a story published about Church’s cocaine and sex addiction. The article was in fact about her Father who was said to be having affairs and hooked on cocaine at the time.

Charlotte Church acknowledged that she had received good press at the outset of her career but said that she had become a victim of slander and blackmail which meant that she needed to be under protection whilst in America. It may be noted here that her comments regarding the aftermath of the September the 11^th bombings have been outspoken, if not inappropriate and may have also contributed to her unpopularity in the USA.

News of Charlotte’s pregnancy reached the news even before her family knew. The singer believes her phone and voicemails may have been targeted by media hackers.

Church is one of the latest to come forward with complaints about the ethics of Murdoch’s media empire. Others include the parents of murdered schoolgirl Minnie Dowler who were led to believe she was alive after voicemails were cleared. Murdoch has allowed illegal behaviour to go on involving papers such as The News of The World which quite rightly closed its doors after a series of phone hacking incidents were revealed including the afore mentioned and also footballer Ryan Giggs who sought legal action against the paper for phone hacking and exposing an alleged affair with his brother’s wife.

It is a shocking tale of blackmail, secrecy and deceit involving journalists and police alike which has caused suffering to a lot of people. Church’s Mother is said to have attempted suicide on discovering stories about her husband’s alleged affair. The Parents of Minnie Dowler were led into false hope that their daughter might still be alive. How many more skeletons are there to come out of the closet following this enquiry?