Since we’ve been featuring large ensemble pieces, I wanted to spotlight the smaller ensemble possibilities of the season. Larry Sue’s 8 bell arrangements are about as small as you can get. Along with his wife Carla, they perform for all sorts of occasions, using these super stripped down arrangements. As a disclaimer: I originally met Larry year ago at bell festivals around California, so I’ve been a fan of his works for a long time. They’re my go-to if someone asks me to play at the last minute for something.
This is an arrangement of a Dutch carol abut Sinterklaas, the original Saint Nicholas that the character Santa Clause was based on. After some research I’ve discovered that I posted this two days late, the celebration of his birthday occurs on December 5th. The carol basically is celebrating his arrival and all the presents and food he brings. I found this great 10 minute video that explains the tradition, if you’re curious. It also has a super catchy melody that works great on bells.
Usually this is the part of the blog post where I insert a video of the original version of the song for comparison. However, in every video of the song I found, it looked like there was a guy in black face in the background. These were new-ish videos, so I was really struggling with if it was actually black face or a really, really terrible makeup job. Turns out that his name is Zwarte Piet, a black character that is Sinterklaas’ helper. Added in the mid 1800s, this character, which is now part of the tradition, is reportedly black from the soot in the chimney. But if you line that date up with the political situation around slavery that was happening in that time period, it is suspiciously super racist. So I’m understandably wary of sharing videos of these characters singing this song. This debate even has a name, the zwartepietendiscussie, which is honestly the most dutch thing I’ve heard all day.
Join us again tomorrow for a hopefully much less politically sensitive holiday piece.
