Kirke Mechem

Kirke Mechem is the composer of more than 250 published works in almost every form. ASCAP registered performances of Mechem's music in 42 countries last year. He conducted and taught at Stanford and was for several years composer-in-residence at the University of San Francisco. He lived in Vienna for three years where he came to the attention of Josef Krips, who later championed Mechem's music as conductor of the San Francisco Symphony. Vocal music is at the heart of Mechem's work. He has been called the "dean of American choral composers."

Seven Joys of Christmas (Catalog No. 2709) , composed nearly 40 years ago, remains one of the most popular holiday pieces in the ECS catalog.

SEVEN JOYS OF CHRISTMAS - Composer’s Note
by Kirke Mechem

In September, 1964 I took a teaching position at San Francisco College for Women (now part of the University of San Francisco), and was told that I would be conducting the Chamber Singers. Knowing little about the school’s music department, I assumed that the Chamber Singers were the most expert group, so I planned a challenging Christmas program. A week before the first rehearsal I held auditions. To my dismay, all who came were freshmen and only one had ever sung in a chorus before.

I scrapped my original program, and decided that I could write easy pieces for this group faster than I could search the literature. Fortunately, I had worked with inexperienced singers before, and had learned that anyone who can carry a tune can sing polyphony, so long as chromaticism and difficult leaps are avoided. (Even difficult rhythms can be learned by beginners.) Arrangements of carols was an obvious solution (but not the department store carols!), and I wanted to write more than simple chordal arrangements. When I decided on seven joys, I looked for carols from different countries that would express these joys of the season: the joy of love, of bells, of Mary, of children, of the new year, of dance and of song. I wrote one piece a day, so the work was ready for the first rehearsal.

The choir sang well. I added a light keyboard accompaniment before the work was published, and later, at Roger Wagner's request, added a version using a small chamber orchestra; still later one for solo harp. I dedicated the work to my teacher, Randall Thompson “with affection, and in admiration of a lifetime devoted to the joy of song.” I am, of course, grateful for the success of Seven Joys, but find it somewhat odd that a piece with such humble, utilitarian origins should have become one of my most popular works. Could it be because the tunes of these carols are so wonderful? And because Christmas rolls around every year?

I should say a word about the last number of the set. It is called a "quodlibet," an old musical term for a piece that uses many different tunes together — not one after another, like a medley — but in counterpoint, against each other. See how many familiar tunes you can pick out in this piece; you will hear some of the carols you heard in the preceding numbers, but also several others as well, sometimes four different tunes at once. Composers have fun with this kind of music — it's like solving a crossword puzzle. I hope that all of you will enjoy the game too.

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