CHRISTMAS AYRES AND DANCES

Arranger:   GREENE, J WILLIAM

These eighteen pieces by J. William Greene on familiar Christmas carols stand in the tradition of the German'house music' (Hausmusik) of the seventeenth century, in which favorite hymns or devotional songs of the day were cast into popular forms, perhaps for home devotions or family amusement around the harpsichord or clavichord in the evening. A prominent example of the genre is the little partita on Auf meinen lieben Gott (BuxWV 179) by Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707), in which a devotional song is set as a traditional set of dances (allemande, double la allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue). The pieces in this collection are not intended to be'new' Baroque music or literal dances, but impressions of the style, much as later Baroque dances became so stylized that they were no longer dances, but musical interpretations in their own right. Occasion: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany.