ROMANIAN CHRISTMAS CAROL

One of the unforeseen pleasures of living in Romania, as we did for 5 years, was the very high quality of their musical tradition.  To listen to an Orthodox church choir could be a sublime experience.

(winter in Brasov)

I miss Romanian Christmases now:  they enjoy it all so much more simply than we do.  Carol singers are still very much in vogue, and every Christmas a choir would visit the block of flats where we lived and sing outside our door.  The majority of people would go to church and the Christmas services were packed, almost always in snow and ice (with no heating in the churches!)

It was a lovely time and made even more so by Romanian friends who always invited us to eat with them on Christmas Day.  We were never left on our own.

For a taste of a Romanian Christmas carol sung by a choir, with images of that beautiful country, try this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvytYYn-i5Q

It is the Madrigal Choir singing ‘Oh what wonderful news’, a very popular carol.