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Welcome to Intermezzo from Interlochen Public Radio, where we take a few minutes to bounce some ideas around about classical music.
This week on Intermezzo, Christy L'Esperance and her co-host Daphne dive into the stories behind some popular Christmas tunes. Yesterday, we discussed "Jingle Bells," and today, we'll dive into an ancient carol created by monks over 1,200 years ago: "O Come, O Come Emmanuel."
"O Come, O Come Emmanuel" began as a set of chants called the "O Antiphons." Each antiphon begins with the word "O" and addresses the Messiah with a different prophetic title from the Old Testament, such as "O Wisdom," "O Key of David" and "O King of Nations". These were sung during the week before Christmas.
What you might not know is that there was a medieval code hidden in the Latin titles of the 7 "O Antiphons."
If you sing one chant per day, and on the last day, read the first letter of the Latin titles in reverse order from day seven to day one, after a whole week of singing "O Come, O Come Emmanuel," you’ll spell the answer to that plea: "ero cras," which in Latin means "I will be there tomorrow." You wouldn’t be able to decode that until Christmas Eve.
This week's Mystery Melody
It's time to test your ears. Each week we have a mystery melody that we have to figure out together. It relates to our topic. (We'll make the melody less mysterious each day.)
If you know the mystery melody, text your name and the title and we’ll give you a shout out on Friday. The number to text is (833) 490-4718.
