caroline shaw and the spirit of christmas

I attended an amazing concert here in Portland last night. It was Trio Mediæval¹ with Caroline Shaw and Danni Lee Parpan. It was much of the trio’s recent holiday album sung live with Shaw and Parpan providing folksong adjacent atmospheric accompaniments.²

First of all, Trio Mediæval. What a remarkable trio of singers! Blend, intonation, phrasing, dynamic range, beauty of tone – it was all of the highest caliber. The 75 minute set flowed well, with a good mix of traditional Scandi fare along with 15th century religious chants and hymns. My concert companion – my wife³, herself a retired choral singer – did note that there were too many breaks that obliged applause. She would have preferred fewer interruptions no matter how well-deserved the audience response. I think it was ok, but I’m an instrumentalist so professional norms of vocal/choral concerts are not yet ingrained in me.

Anyway, as Caroline played some artful counterpoint on her viola (lovely sounding, expertly and artfully played), with a low, atmospheric synth drone provided by Parpan, I was thinking back to the recent traversal by 45th Parallel Universe of the complete works for string quartet that Shaw has thus far written. It suddenly sprang into my mind that this sublime occasion of a concert of ancient music for the Christmas holiday combining with the sensibilities of Caroline Shaw is perhaps the most perfect of mashups. I then thought (as one who writes a blog does) that this would be an interesting hottest of hot takes to explore in a new blog post. That incendiary take (on the order of Cheetos Flamin’ Hot Sweet Carolina Reaper in terms of sheer hotness and quite possibly quality), is that Caroline Shaw’s music is very much like the music that exemplifies the best of the ‘serious’ high art music of the Christmas season, especially as presented last night.

What do I mean by that? Do I mean that Caroline’s music is either explicitly or implicitly religious? Absolutely not! I don’t know either way, and wouldn’t dare to speculate about something like that for someone who I have met several times but hardly know. But, that being said, Caroline’s music is deeply and profoundly beautiful. It is crafted with such care. It speaks with such a specific and entirely original voice. Her music reaches depths of feeling with sincerity, honesty, and a clear-eyed, unsentimental sense of hope and optimism.

That hope and optimism is shared with the best of the high art that we associate with the holiday season. I’m thinking of Comfort Ye from Messiah and carols suich as Jesus Christ the Apple Tree and Es ist ein Ros entsprungen (sung as the encore to last night’s concert) among many others. Optimism and hope should be cornerstones of Christianity – isn’t that the entire point? But so much becomes lost and we forget the incredible promise and beauty of the story with its vaults of twinkling stars, angelic visitations, and a supreme gift of love.

Back to Caroline. I’ve played a m.s.t.⁴ of music in my over 30 years as a professional violist. Some of it is incredibly good. Some of it is really bad. Most of it is somewhere in between. Of the incredibly good music, there isn’t a ton of hope to be found in it. Composers are exploring dark corners of the human psyche, and often there isn’t much hope to be found there. It can be a supreme experience of catharsis to live through such works, being one step removed through the prism of art rather than directly involved via one’s own circumstances. Sometimes, however, you just want to leave a concert feeling better about life and the state of the world because of what you heard there. I always feel that way after hearing one of Caroline’s works, especially performed live.

I wonder where she will go next, in her compositional journey. I wonder if there will be a late style, many years from now, that will play against type. Caroline’s personality seems very much in step with the music she creates. She seems to be curious, open, accepting, optimistic, hopeful, playful. And very deep. So in my mind’s eye I see a devastating work that calls all of that into question. I can’t even imagine what that would sound like, or look like, or what would have to happen to bring that into being. Part of me wants to know, and part of me never wants to see it come to pass.

When I think to the past, works of Beethoven that I find so meaningful take a similar tack. Beethoven is so often angry. He rages violently against a world which is bent against him. Fate takes his hearing from him. Society takes his dignity from him. He does a lot to further his misery through his misguided actions. And yet. In the depths of his despair he writes the slow movement of his Op. 132 string quartet: Heiliger Dankgesang eines Genesenen an die Gottheit, in der Lydischen Tonart (Holy song of thanksgiving of a convalescent to the Deity, in the Lydian mode) where he gives thanks in spite of his affliction and circumstances, and it is all the more devastating for it.

I may be full of it – in fact, it’s likely that I am! But last night I found this wonderful connection between the religious hope and optimism that imbues the origin story of one of humankind’s great religions and a woman who dares to write with a seemingly secular voice that is full of the same hope and optimism for humanity. All at a choral concert in Portland in December 2025. Huh…

1. first time that I have had to figure out how to type ‘æ’ ↩︎
2. That description is utter shit because this was a magical concert in many ways! ↩︎
3. check out her new blog Portland Choral Notebook ↩︎
4. metric shit ton ↩︎