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Archives for 5 January 2022

🎵 🎭 TWELFTH NIGHT and the End of Holiday Music Month 2021–2022

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Today is the Twelfth Day of Christmas, which means tonight is Twelfth Night, an evening traditionally given over to disorderly irreverence. Just as rowdy Halloween (All Hallows’ Evening) precedes the Christian holy day of All Hallows (All Saints’ Day), so rowdy Twelfth Night precedes the Christian holy day of Epiphany.

Shakespeare’s slapstick-ish comedy Twelfth Night was written as entertainment for a night such as this, when the world is upside-down and a woman disguised as a man falls in love with a man who is in love with a woman who is in love with the woman disguised as a man, and when, as usual, the Fool is the only one with any sense. For homeschool entertainment this evening, why not listen again to the great countertenor Alfred Deller (1912–1979), who we featured also on New Year’s Day, singing, in true Renaissance style, the Fool’s song “When that I was and a little tiny boy” from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night:

Deller was a key figure in the twentieth-century revival of authentic early music performance, and he recreated for new audiences the popular singing styles of the Shakespearean era. For an ideal little homeschool lesson on this Twelfth Night, why not sing along and learn a verse or two of this famous Shakespearean song:

When that I was and a little tiny boy,
 With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
A foolish thing was but a toy,
 For the rain it raineth every day.

With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
For the rain it raineth every day.

But when I came to a man’s estate,
 With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
’Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gate,
 For the rain it raineth every day.

With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
For the rain it raineth every day.

But when I came, alas! to wive,
 With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
By swaggering I could never thrive,
 For the rain it raineth every day.

With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
For the rain it raineth every day.

Long, long ago the world begun,
 With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
But that’s all one, our play is done,
 And we’ll strive to please you every day.

With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
For the rain it raineth every day.

And in case you and your students have forgotten the plot of Twelfth Night (or never could figure it out in the first place), cartoon artist Mya Gosling has got you covered:

[Twelfth Night in three panels]
Twelfth Night in three panels. (Image: Good Tickle Brain, “the world’s foremost stick-figure Shakespeare webcomic.”)

Four weeks ago our music month begun, with hey, ho, the wind and the rain. But that’s all one, our month is done. We strive to please you every day. 🎄 🎵 🎭

❡ Who will find the beans? To properly celebrate Twelfth Night, you’ll want to be sure to bake a proper Shakespearean Twelfth Night cake, complete with three hidden beans inside. The Folger Shakespeare Library has a complete recipe for you. 🎂

❡ Literary lives: The website of the Poetry Foundation includes biographical notes and examples of the work of many important poets (including William Shakespeare) that are suitable for high school students and homeschool teachers. 🖋

❡ Lift every voice: This is one of our occasional posts on Homeschool Arts & Music. Add your name to our weekly mailing list and get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 🗞

🎵 🎄 HOLIDAY MUSIC MONTH: A Partridge in a 🍐🌳

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Our Homeschool Holiday Music Month comes to its grand conclusion today with two posts: this one for the Twelfth Day (of Christmas) and a second one for Twelfth Night.

This spectacular arrangement of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” by Broadway composer David Chase, performed live in concert by the Boston Pops Orchestra, is an educational musical masterpiece that you shouldn’t miss. Why not turn it up to orchestral volume and invite your students to dance around the house today:

January 5th is traditionally considered the last day of the Christmas season — the Twelfth Day of Christmas. In many Western societies it’s treated as a day of revelry and celebration; it’s also often regarded as the traditional day on which the Christmas tree and all the decorations come down until next year. The humorous “Twelve Days of Christmas” song, which can be traced back in part at least as far as the late 1700s, celebrates the day and has become a staple of radio broadcasts and concert hall extravaganzas across the country.

Twelve Days of Christmas stamps (2017 series) from the Isle of Man, designed by artist Catherine Rowe.

David Chase’s arrangement of the “Twelve Days of Christmas,” which incorporates passages from a great variety of other works, has become an especially popular performance piece. How many musical quotations can your students identify within it? I can hear (at least) some children’s songs, some other Christmas carols, a Beethoven symphony, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! and The Sound of Music, Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, some dance-hall cancan music, and of course Handel’s magnificent Messiah at the end. (Remember the Great Rest at the end of the Hallelujah Chorus that we pointed to last week? Did you recognize it again here?)

One of the deepest purposes of a liberal education is to enable people to get jokes, and this “Twelve Days” performance teaches that happy principle. See if your students notice how the entire audience laughs when the orchestra gets to Day 5, and see if they can tell why.

What marvelous musical discoveries did you make in your homeschool during this delightful Holiday Music Month? 🎵 🍐🌳

❡ Just how much are those French hens? Did you know you can use “The Twelve Days of Christmas” to teach economics? It’s true! The PNC Financial Services Group, a Pittsburgh-based banking firm, has for many years been publishing a whimsical Christmas Price Index that charts the total cost of all the items in the song, from twelve drummers drumming to a partridge in a pear tree. They even have a kids’ activity book and twelve daily crafts you can make — why not give them a try!

❡ Lift every voice: This is one of our occasional posts on Homeschool Arts & Music. Add your name to our weekly mailing list and get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 🗞

🌎 🇬🇹 WEEKLY WORLD HERITAGE: Tikal National Park in Guatemala

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Guatemala in Central America is one of our homeschool countries-of-the-week, so why not spend a few minutes today learning about one of Guatemala’s World Heritage Sites: Tikal National Park.

The north acropolis at Tikal. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

Tikal is one of the most important surviving monuments of the ancient Mayan civilization:

Tikal National Park is located in northern Guatemala’s Petén Province within a large forest region often referred to as the Maya Forest, which extends into neighbouring Mexico and Belize. Embedded within the much larger Maya Biosphere Reserve, exceeding two million hectares and contiguous with additional conservation areas, Tikal National Park is one of the few World Heritage properties inscribed according to both natural and cultural criteria for its extraordinary biodiversity and archaeological importance. It comprises 57,600 hectares of wetlands, savannah, tropical broadleaf and palm forests with thousands of architectural and artistic remains of the Mayan civilization from the Preclassic Period (600 B.C.) to the decline and eventual collapse of the urban centre around 900 A.D. The diverse ecosystems and habitats harbour a wide spectrum of neotropical fauna and flora. Five cats, including Jaguar and Puma, several species of monkeys and anteaters and more than 300 species of birds are among the notable wildlife. The forests comprise more than 200 tree species and over 2000 higher plants have been recorded across the diverse habitats.

Tikal, a major Pre-Columbian political, economic and military centre, is one of the most important archaeological complexes left by the Maya civilization. An inner urban zone of around 400 hectares contains the principal monumental architecture and monuments which include palaces, temples, ceremonial platforms, small and medium sized residences, ball-game courts, terraces, roads, large and small squares. Many of the existing monuments preserve decorated surfaces, including stone carvings and mural paintings with hieroglyphic inscriptions, which illustrate the dynastic history of the city and its relationships with urban centres as far away as Teotihuacan and Calakmul in Mexico, Copan in Honduras or Caracol in Belize. A wider zone of key archaeological importance, around 1,200 hectares, covers residential areas and historic water reservoirs, today known as “aguadas.” The extensive peripheral zone features more than 25 associated secondary sites, historically serving protective purposes and as check-points for trade routes. The peripheral areas also played a major role for agricultural production for the densely populated centre.

Research has revealed numerous constructions, carved monuments and other evidence bearing witness to highly sophisticated technical, intellectual and artistic achievements that developed from the arrival of the first settlers (800 B.C.) to the last stages of historic occupation around the year 900. Tikal has enhanced our understanding not only of an extraordinary bygone civilisation but also of cultural evolution more broadly. The diversity and quality of architectonical and sculptural ensembles serving ceremonial, administrative and residential functions are exemplified in a number of exceptional places, such as the Great Plaza, the Lost World Complex, the Twin Pyramid Complexes, as well as in ball courts and irrigation structures. (World Heritage Centre #64)

You can find a gallery of additional photos of Tikal National Park on the World Heritage Centre’s website.

World Heritage Sites are cultural or natural landmarks of international significance, selected for recognition by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. More than 1000 such sites have been recognized in over 160 countries, and we feature one every Wednesday, drawn from one of our homeschool countries-of-the-week. You can find a complete list of World Heritage Sites online at the World Heritage Centre and in Wikipedia.

The World Heritage Centre also has a free and comprehensive World Heritage education kit for teachers, as well as a wonderful full-color wall map of World Heritage Sites, available for the cost of shipping. Why not add them both to your own homeschool library. 🗺

What world treasures are you exploring in your homeschool this Orion Term? 😊

❡ Books in the running brooks: You can always turn to your River Houses almanac, atlas, and history encyclopedia for more information about any of our countries-of-the-week. The almanac has profiles of all the nations of the world on pages 752–859; the endpapers of the atlas are indexes that will show you where all of the individual national and regional maps may be found; the history encyclopedia includes national histories on pages 489–599; and you can find additional illustrations, flags, and other mentions through the indexes in each of these volumes. For an ideal little lesson, just write the name of the Weekly World Heritage Site on your homeschool bulletin board, find its location in your atlas, read the WHC’s brief description aloud, look at a picture or two, and you’re done. Over the course of the year, without even realizing it, your students will absorb a wealth of new historical, geographical, and cultural information. 🇬🇹

❡ The great globe itself: This is one of our regular Homeschool States & Countries posts featuring historical and natural sites of international importance. Download a copy of our River Houses World Heritage Calendar and follow along with us as we tour the planet, and add your name to our weekly mailing list to get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 🌎 🌍 🌏