White Christmas

Accounts vary on where Irving Berlin wrote “White Christmas”. Berlin himself even recall differing circumstances on when it was penned. Some sources claim at was written at the poolside in Aizona Biltmore Resort and Spa in Phoenix. Other accounts state that is was in Beverly Hills, California. In any case, the narration is set in the latter. (1) The original version opens with a verse:

The sun is shining.
The grass is green.
The orange and palm trees sway.
There’s never been such a day
In Beverly Hills, L.A.
But it’s December the twenty-fourth,
And I’m longing to be up north.

This is juxtaposed against the imagery of the traditional white Christmas in the chorus, with imagery of listening treetops and sleigh bells ringing.

Berlin, who couldn’t read and write music had a “musical secretary”, Helmy Kresa,who would transcribe his ideas. Upon the inception of the song, he told his secretary: “Grab your pen and take down this song. I just wrote the best song I’ve ever written — heck, I just wrote the best song that anybody’s ever written!”

(1) Southard, John. “Irving Berlin’s ‘White Christmas’ – Is There An Arizona Biltmore Connection?” John Larsen Southard: historian. 25 December 2013. http://johnsouthard.com/irving-berlins-white-christmas/. Accessed 3 April 2016.

(2) “A Musical History.” Universal Music Music Publishing Group: Australia and New Zealand. http://www.umusicpub.com.au/About-Us/TimeLine.aspx. Accessed 3 April 2016.

 

Posted

in

by

Greg

Tags:

,

Featured Content

Matheson and Handel’s duel
Two flamboyant young musickers leave the town of Lübeck as soon as can be. For they have learned that the successful candidate must marry the daughter of the man in whose shoes they would fain have trodden the pedals. One look at the daughter was enough. She was not fair to see, and her years […]
Abstraction XVIII
Title: Abstraction XVIIIComposer: Greg SmithInstrumentation: PianoProduct medium: PDF scoreRelated products: – Abstraction XVIII (mp3 audio) Sample:
Sanctuary (The Boy and the Heron)
Composer: Joe HisaishiArranger: Greg SmithTitle: “Sanctuary”, from The Boy and the HeronInstrumentation: Piano Solo Available from Sheet Music Direct and Sheet Music Plus.
Give music to those who love it
“Music must be given to those who love it. I want to give free concerts; that’s the answer.” -Sviatoslav Richter, pianist Bruno Monsaingeon: Introduction to Sviatoslav Richter — Notebooks and Conversations p. XX. Cited at: Wikipedia
George Sand on Chopin’s compositional process
“His creation was spontaneous and miraculous. He found it without seeking it, without forseeing it. It came on his piano suddenly, complete, sublime, or it sang in his head during a walk when he was impatient to play it to himself. But then he began the most heart-rending labor I ever saw. It was a […]
Appreciating beauty
Music exists only in a passing of time, racing past us like the mid-nineenth-century trains Ruskin so hated. It is utterly non-fixed, and to focus on one moment is to destroy the whole. It is a forest that we have to pass through, not a single tree that we can contemplate or capture. But, if […]
A little poem by Mozart
Dearest Stroll! good old troll! you sit in your hole drunk as a Mole! – But you’re touched in your soul by music’s sweet flow. – Mozart, in a letter to Anton Stoll Cited in: Spaethling, Robert (2000) Mozart’s Letters; Mozart’s Life.  London: Faber and Faber, p.438.
Music in the very heart of noise
I frequently hear music in the very heart of noise. — George Gerswhin Goldberg, Isaac, and Garson, Edith. George Gershwin: A Study in American Music. United Kingdom, F. Ungar Publishing Company, 1958, p.139.
You can’t own the tuning
This account of a bizarre law suite on May 6 at Bow St. against the Associated Board of Musical Examinations appeared in the English journal The Musical Times (June 1932).  The board was accused of obtaining money under false pretences: Mr. Lennox Atkins, F.R.C.O., asked on behalf of the Equal Temperament Committee for a process […]
The ideal and the played performance
Some conductors put all the emphasis on the melodic line, while others are fanatics about rhythm, but there are very few conductors who are uniquely able to look at the score and hear every part before it actually happens. With the very best of conductors, it’s as though there are two performances going on simultaneously. […]