Sting's "If on a Winter's Night . . . " Quiz

Answer: Gabriel's Message

"Gabriel's Message" is originally a Basque folk carol. Traditionally, the English version of the song is one derived from words collected by Charles Bordes, translated by Sabine Baring-Gould, and arranged by Edgar Pettman. Pettman's arrangement can be found in "Modern Christmas Carols", published in 1892. Relying on the words of Luke 1:26-38, the song does incorporate the Biblical account of Gabriel's Annunciation to Mary that she, as a virgin, would give birth to the Messiah.

Within the booklet accompanying the "If on Winter's Night . . ." album, Sting writes, "I appreciate the beauty of these [Christmas] stories and how they have inspired musicians and poets for many centuries. It was my desire to treat these themes with reverence and respect, and despite my personal agnosticism, the sacred symbolism of the Church's art still exerts a powerful influence over me". Later, he writes, "The imagery of 'Gabriel's Message' . . . is both beautiful and terrifying. Mary, who is -- as usual -- described as meek and gentle, is confronted by the vision of an awesome being with eyes of flame and wings of drifted snow". Sting grew up under the influence of his parents' Roman Catholic faith.

Sting's earlier recorded version on the 1987 "Very Special Christmas" album can also be found on the B-side of his 1985 single "Russians" from his first solo album "Dream of the Blue Turtles".

The title of this 2009 album is derived from Italo Calvino's 1979 novel, "If on a winter's night a traveler". The album peaked at number six on the US "Billboard" 200 chart and number fifteen on the UK Albums Chart. Its best performance was reaching number one on the Polish Albums Chart. Robert Sadin, an American jazz musician, arranger, and composer, shared the production responsibilities of the album with Sting.

Answer: Soul Cake

As the question explains, "Soul Cake" was originally a song for All Saints' Day, when children would run around from door to door asking for soul cakes--rounded, palm-sized cakes filled with all kinds of spices (such as cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg) as well as raisins or currants. Before the cakes were baked, they were marked with a cross because they were set out along with cups of wine as alms for the dead on All Hallows' Eve, the night before All Saints' Day. Whatever was left over was begged for by children the following day. This practice is thought to be the origin of the trick-or-treat tradition.

In 1963, Paul Stookey of the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary arranged the song differently but used all of the verses from the 1890s Christmas version. He further added parts of "Hey, Ho, Nobody Home" and "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" and changed the name of the entire composition to "A Soalin'". It is this version that Sting and Robert Sadin arranged for Sting's album."Soul Cake" was chosen by Sting to represent the "If on a Winter's Night . . ." album on his Three-CD compilation "25 Years".

In the booklet that accompanies his "If on a Winter's Night . . . " album, Sting writes, "For many, [Christmas] is a period of intense loneliness and alienation. I specifically avoided the jolly, almost triumphalist, strain in many of the Christian carols. I make a musical reference to 'God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen' only as a dramatic counterpoint to the words in 'Soul Cake', for example".

Some of the words Sting may be referring to are "The streets are very dirty, / Me shoes are very thin, / I have a little pocket / To put a penny in".

Answer: a harp

Mary Macmaster was born in 1955 in Glasgow, Scotland. She is both a harpist and a singer, who was inducted into the Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame in 2013. As a young teen, she bought a harp, not realizing that it was a clarsach, or Celtic harp, which is stringed differently from other harps. Thus, she began learning to play a harp with this instrument and essentially taught herself how to play it. She improved her understanding of the instrument and its music by studying at a Clarsach Society summer school and by majoring in Celtic Studies at the University of Edinburgh. She recorded one album with the group Sprangeen in 1984, but she and fellow member Patsy Seedon left the group to create a duo of harpists and vocalists. This duo--Sileas--still performs, but the two of them also joined Sally Barker, Karen Tweed, and Jenny Gardener to create the band The Poozies.

The clarsach, also known as the Celtic or Gaelic harp, is a triangular harp, usually associated with Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and Brittany of France. It is typically a difficult instrument to master as the player must damper previously played strings while plucking the next strings because of the strings' high resonance. Images of these harps may be found on Irish and British coins as well as on the coats of arms belonging to Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Canada.

Macmaster plays the harp on the following songs: "Christmas at Sea", "The Burning Babe", "Lullaby for an Anxious Child", and on a bonus track appearing on some albums "Blake's Cradle Song" (lyrics written by English poet William Blake). She also performs vocals with Sting on "Christmas at Sea".

Answer: The Snow It Melts the Soonest

"The Snow It Melts the Soonest", sometimes known as "The Snows They Melt the Soonest", is a British folk song that dates as far back as at least the early nineteenth century. The song with its lyrics is recorded in an 1821 edition of "Blackwood's Magazine". Bruce and Stokoe's 1882 book "Northumbrian Minstrelsy" lists the contributor of the 1821 version of "The Snow It Melts the Soonest" as Thomas Doubleday who set the words to the melody of the song "My Love Is Newly Listed", which he claimed he learned from a street singer. Since the 1960s, the song has been variously arranged and recorded by at least twenty different performers, including Sting.

Within the booklet accompanying the "If on a Winter's Night . . ." album, Sting writes the following: "Later that evening in Tuscany [where Sting sometimes resides], the wind still howling outside, I will ask Kathryn [Tickle, pipist and violinist] if she knows any songs from Newcastle [the home of Sting's youth] that would suit this project. She tells me that when she was a small child her Dad used to sing her a song called 'The Snow It Melts the Soonest'. I don't know it, but she and Julian [Sutton, melodian player] will patiently teach it to me. The song, like the moors of Northumberland in the winter, has a characteristic bleakness and is starkly beautiful. As I sing it, I feel a rare twinge of homesickness".

Answer: Cherry Tree Carol

"Cherry Tree Carol" is at least as old as the early 1400s and is part of the "Child Ballads" collected by Francis James Child in the nineteenth century. Child's studies of the different versions suggest that the ballad may be a merging of three separate carols. The version that Sting records on his album mentions the courtship of a much older Joseph and a young Mary and then quickly moves to a moment when the two are walking. Mary spots a cherry tree and then makes her request: "Joseph gather me some cherries, for I am with child". Joseph flies into anger and quite bitterly tells Mary to let the baby's father pick her cherries for her. Suddenly and supernaturally, the top of the tree bows to the ground, and Mary gathers her own cherries while Joseph responds meekly with humiliation. He begs forgiveness from Mary and from God. Other versions have Mary and Joseph traveling to Bethlehem on their way to participate in the census. Some versions have Jesus speak to the tree from Mary's womb so that the tree bows, and some have an angel appear before Joseph after the tree bows to explain to Joseph how Mary is pregnant with the Son of God. Some versions end with a verse that has an older child explaining to his mother Mary that he will one day be crucified and rise again to life.

The song's origin seems to be from one of the New Testament Apocrypha, the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, aka The Infancy Gospel of Matthew. This gospel tells the story of how Mary and Joseph are on their way to Egypt with Jesus, who has already been born, so that they may escape persecution. They come across a palm tree, and Joseph, who is greatly frustrated that they have no food and no water, demands that the infant's true father gather dates from the tree since Joseph cannot reach them.

On the album, Sting sings the lyrics and plays guitar during this recording; he is the only one who performs during this song. In the booklet that accompanies the album, Sting has these words to say about the song: "The Mary and Joseph of the 'Cherry Tree Carol' are attractively human in the way they respond to their unusual predicament. . . . Mary, now with child, asks her husband to gather cherries for her. With some anger, Joseph replies that the father of the baby should fetch her cherries, and not he. Such an honest emotional response is refreshing."

Answer: a melodeon

A melodeon is quite similar to an accordion, and, apparently, there is much debate and confusion surrounding the differences between the two instruments. A melodeon is supposed to be one type of an accordion, usually a two-row diatonic bisonoric accordion. The phrase "two-row" refers literally to two rows of buttons that the performer pushes or presses. The word "diatonic" refers to the fact that the instrument plays the basic notes of an eight-note scale (do, re, mi, fa so, la, ti, do or a set of eight white keys on a piano that represent one scale). In other words, the instrument is not chromatic, meaning that it does not play any semitones or sharps and flats to create a thirteen-note scale. The term "bisonoric" refers to the ability of the instrument to play a different note for the same depressed button, depending on whether the player is pushing or pulling the bellows.

However, many people claim different explanations depending on where they live. For example, many claim that an accordion and melodeon are the same instrument. Some say a melodeon uses buttons while an accordion uses a keyboard. Some say the difference lies with how many rows of buttons each instrument has. There are many other explanations, and the whole matter becomes even more confusing when you try to work in an explanation of what a concertina is.

Julian Sutton is a traditional musician from Newcastle, Sting's childhood home. He has a degree in Folk Music from Newcastle University. His instrument of choice is, indeed, a melodeon, and he has released albums consisting of his playing original compositions as well as traditional pieces he has re-interpreted. One of his better known albums is "Melodeon Crimes", which he released in 2005.

Julian Sutton plays melodeon on the following songs from Sting's album: "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming", "The Burning Babe", "The Hounds of Winter", "Lullaby for an Anxious Child", and "The Hurdy-Gurdy Man".

Answer: Balulalow

"Balulalow" is the Scottish translation of verses thirteen and fourteen of Martin Luther's fifteen-verse hymn, "Von Himmel hoch, da komm ich her" ("From Heaven Above to Earth I Come"). Luther's hymn tells of the arrival and birth of Christ on Earth and consists of several verses of praise and expression of joy. He composed the words in 1534, and the music, dating from 1539, that usually accompanies it was most likely written by Luther as well. Within the 1567 edition of "The Gude and Godlie Ballasts" is found the earliest Scottish translation of Luther's entire hymn. However, the thirteenth and fourteenth verses were often sung by themselves as a lullaby. The words are meant to be sung to Jesus as an infant, but are gentle enough to warrant their being sung to any child.

O my dear hert, young Jesu sweet,
Prepare they credil in my spreit
And I shall rock thee in my hert
And never mair from thee depert.

But I sall praise thee evermore
With sangis sweet unto thy glore.
The knees of my hert sall I bow,
And sing that richt Balulalow.

In 1919, the English composer and music critic Patrick Warlock (Patrick Arnold Heseltine) set the words to the tune that Sting uses. In the booklet that accompanies the album, Sting writes, "Peter Warlock's beautiful setting of the Scottish hymn 'Balulalow' is a lullaby that is lyrically at the more comforting end of the spectrum; but the E flat pedal against the modal voicing of the arrangement is not entirely free of dark portents". In the paragraph before these words, Sting writes, ". . . I was drawn to many of the beautiful lullabies from both secular and religious traditions and became intrigued by their dual nature, for lullabies seem to be designed not only to soothe but also to unsettle the listener". Thus, his interpretive response to lullabies fits with his dual response to the season of winter itself. Earlier in the booklet, Sting explains, "[T]here is something of the Winter that is primal, mysterious and utterly irreplaceable, something both bleak and profoundly beautiful, something essential to the myth of ourselves, to the story of our humanity, as if we somehow need the darkness of the winter months to replenish our inner spirits as much as we need the light, energy and warmth of the summer".

Answer: Lullaby for an Anxious Child

"Lullaby for an Anxious Child" was co-written by Sting and Dominic Miller, the esteemed guitarist who has accompanied Sting on every album since Sting's 1991 "Soul Cages". It was originally released in 1996 as an accompanying song to "You Still Touch Me", a single from Sting's "Mercury Falling" album. However, at that point its title was "Lullaby TO [emphasis added] an Anxious Child".

In the booklet accompanying the "If on a Winter's Night . . ." album, Sting writes, ". . . 'Lullaby for an Anxious Child' . . . contains forebodings of a dark world beyond the cradle". The song begins with "Hush child, / Let your mummy sleep into the night until we rise. / Hush child, / Let me soothe the shining tears that gather in your eyes". Eventually, the song gathers to the bridge, which contains these words: "The world is broken now, / All in sorrow, / Wise men hang their heads". Nevertheless, the child is apparently stronger than his father realizes, and the father finds inspiration in the child's spirited raging against the night. The song ends with these words: "All the strength I'll need to fight I'll find inside your eyes, / In your eyes". Ironically, the song ends up being more of a source of comfort to its singer than it is for the child for which it is intended.

Answer: Vincent Segal

Vincent Segal was born in 1967 in Reims, France. He studied music at the National Music Academy of Lyon and then traveled overseas to Canada to study at the Banff Centre of the Arts in Alberta. In addition to his collaborations mentioned in the question, he has also worked with the French reggae band Tryo and the experimental group known as Mujeres Encinta. In 1986, he and Cyril Atef formed the duo Bumcello, mostly known for its electronica. In fact, it was named Electronic Artist of the Year in 2006 at the annual Victoires de la Musique.

Sting met Vincent Segal in 2008 while contributing to Steve Nieve's opera "Welcome to the Voice" at the Chatelet Theatre in Paris. In the booklet accompanying his "If on a Winter's Night . . . " album, Sting compliments Segal by writing, "Vincent plays everything from plucked bossa nova rhythms to sonorous Bach preludes". Segal's cello playing can be heard on the following songs from the album: "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming", "Cold Song", "The Burning Babe", "The Hounds of Winter", "Balulalow", "Lullaby for an Anxious Child", and a bonus track appearing on some albums "Blake's Cradle Song" (lyrics by English poet William Blake).

Answer: The Hurdy-Gurdy Man

While I relied on Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy Man" for a hint, Schubert's "The Hurdy-Gurdy Man" is an entirely different song. Sting also alters the lyrics of the Wilhelm Muller poem used for the words to the song. In Sting's arrangement, the impoverished man who plays his hurdy gurdy while hoping to convince passers-by to give money stands alone while "his empty plate, / It only fills with snow". In fact, "No one wants to hear / His hurdy-gurdy song" as he stands shoeless in the snow. Meanwhile, his fingers are freezing so that he can barely play, and "hungry dogs surround him". All of this is supposed to represent the hurdy-gurdy man's approaching death. Then, the individual who is watching the hurdy-gurdy man says:

"He will fall asleep
And then before too long
He'll just let it happen,
Happen come what may,
Play his hurdy-gurdy
Till his dying day.

Watching you, old man,
I see myself in you.
One day I will play
The hurdy-gurdy, too.

Most depressing, indeed! Each of us must die, and the world is a cold and cruel place where no one cares that each of us must die.

Sting writes the following about "The Hurdy-Gurdy Man" in the booklet accompanying the "If on a Winter's Night . . . " album: "It would have seemed strange not to make reference at least to Schubert's great song cycle 'Winterreise, his masterly meditation on the season, and one of the inspirations for the present collection [his 2009 album]. I've taken some liberties with the English translation of 'Der Leiermann' in suggesting that the snarling dogs mentioned there may perhaps take a more active role in the demise of the hurdy-gurdy man. The observer in the song not only maintains a sense of curiosity and empathy towards the subject but perhaps envisions the spectre of his own future".

Answer: Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94) was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and apparently loved the open seas. His poem "Christmas at Sea" was published in the "Scotsman Observer" in 1888, four years after the publication of "Treasure Island" and two years after the publication of "Kidnapped". One of his greatest experiences was the trip across the Atlantic Ocean to New York, where he lived for a season. Eventually, he sailed into the Pacific Ocean, where he settled and lived in Samoa for the last years of his life.

Stevenson's affinity for the ocean is shared by Sting. Not only does Sting sing of it in the song "Valparaiso" from his "Mercury Falling" album, but over half the songs from his "Soul Cages" and "Last Ship" albums are about the sea. Furthermore, Sting has contributed to the soundtracks of the documentaries "The Living Sea" and "Dolphins", produced for the purpose of drawing awareness to conservation of the oceans and their inhabitants. Sting was born in Wallsend near Newcastle, England, and he grew up around the huge shipbuilding industry there. Watching the skeletons of ships grow into giant shapes that blotted out the sky and then set sail never to return had a huge impact on his psyche and view of life, as he himself explains, and his father's romantic view of the ocean also influenced him. Frequently, his father pushed him to "Go to sea. See the world".

About "Christmas at Sea", Sting writes the following in his "If on a Winter's Night . . ." album material: ". . . I was attracted to Robert Louis Stevenson's poem 'Christmas at Sea' because it describes so well the powerful gravitational pull of home that Christmas exerts on the traveller. When Mary Macmaster started to sing the Gaelic song 'Thograinn Thograinn', a women's working song from the Isle of Skye, I thought the melody would make a perfect counterpoint for the longing of Stevenson's sailor, who finds himself on a foundering ship below the cliff-side town where he was born: 'of all the days in the year . . . [ellipsis Sting's] on blessed Christmas morn'". The song does indeed leave the listener contemplating a supernatural or a psychologically coincidental explanation for how the sailor ends up where he does, when he does.

Answer: the bass

Ira Coleman is a French-American jazz bassist born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1956. In addition to collaborating with Sting, he has also worked with Herbie Hancock, Laurent de Wilde, Dee Dee Bridgewater, John Esposito, Joanne Brackeen, and many others. The instrument with which he is most associated is what many refer to as the double bass or upright bass. Of course, most just refer to the instrument as simply the bass.

Sting has always almost always played bass guitar or a double bass on his albums, going all the way back to his first days with The Police. He is so comfortable with the instrument that he has said that sometimes he has difficulty singing if he's not also playing the bass. One of his most recent tours was called the "Back to Bass" tour. However, on the "If on a Winter's Night . . ." album, Sting plays an assortment of different instruments on different songs: guitar, lute, snare drum, and various other percussion instruments.

Also appearing on the album are several musicians who have accompanied Sting on other albums and tours. Dominic Miller, whom Sting describes in the accompanying album booklet as "my right and left hand for almost two decades", plays guitar. Kathryn Tickell, who appears on at least five of Sting's albums, plays violin and northumbrian small pipes. David Sancious plays organ on "The Hounds of Winter". Chris Botti plays trumpet on "Balulalow" and "Blake's Cradle Song". Edin Karamazov, with whom Sting recorded his "Songs from the Labyrinth" album, plays lute on "You Only Cross My Mind in Winter". Of course, several other musicians assist Sting with the songs on the album, providing vocals, other percussion instruments, violins, violas, cellos, trumpets, trombones, tubas, horns, a harmonium, a dulcimer, a clarinet, a saxophone, a recorder, a mandocello, a mandolin, an oud, and a ney.

Answer: Johann Sebastian Bach

Scholars speculate that Bach composed the six Cello Suites between 1717 and 1723, while he was choirmaster at Kothen. They were meant to be played by cello, unaccompanied by any other instrument. They were rarely played and thus remained mostly unknown until the the early twentieth century, when Pablo Casals recorded them. Now, they are considered a representation of Bach's greatest work as well as some of his most difficult to play.

Sting takes the Sarabande from the Sixth Cello Suite, and despite the song's being meant solely for the cello, Sting sings lyrics he wrote while getting Edin Karamazov to play lute, Ira Coleman to play bass, and various other musicians from the Musica Aeterna Orchestra to play other string instruments to Robert Sadin's conducting.

Sting explains in the booklet accompanying "If on a Winter's Night . . . " that "You Only Cross My Mind in Winter" is meant to be a "ghost story". The singer goes walking down a road on a December day after snow and ice have covered that path as well as the landscape. As he is walking, he remembers how he and a loved one, who is no longer with him, often walked this way in winters past. Eventually, he begins remembering so much more of their lives together. Then, for some inexplicable reason, he is moved to look behind him, where he sees not only his footsteps in the snow but also another's footsteps beside his. The song ends with the singer smiling to himself and wondering "why it is / You only cross my mind in winter".

Ghost stories, particularly in Britain (consider some of the famous ones of Charles Dickens), seem to be associated with winter, and Sting comments on this relationship in the booklet accompanying his "If on a Winter's Night . . . " album: "Walking amid the snows of Winter, or sitting entranced in a darkened room gazing at the firelight, usually evokes in me a mood of reflection, a mood that can be at times philosophical, at others wildly irrational; I find myself haunted by memories. For Winter is the season of ghosts; and ghosts, if they can be said to reside anywhere, reside here in this season of frosts and in these long hours of darkness. We must treat with them calmly and civilly, before the snows melt and the cycle of the seasons begins once more".

Answer: John Dryden

The "Cold Song" comes from Henry Purcell's "King Arthur, or the British Worthy", which is a semi-opera, which is a form of entertainment that was popular primarily in England during the Restoration Era and that was a combination of a spoken play performed by the primary characters and songs and dances performed by minor characters. Henry Purcell lived from 1659 to 1695 and is famous for his uniquely English form of Baroque music. One of England's greatest composers, he is honored along with Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frederic Handel on an Episcopalian feast day. He wrote at least 65 anthems, 100 hymns, 52 catches, 24 odes and welcome songs, 43 pieces for theatre, 6 operas and semi-operas, 219 instrumentals, around 200 songs, and the funeral music for Queen Mary II. The "Cold Song" is also known as the "Cold Genius aria".

John Dryden (1631-1700) was so dominate a literary figure during England's late 1600s that the time period is often referred to as the Age of Dryden. His loyalty to the British monarchy is the basis for his political epic "Absalom and Achitophel", a poem that somewhat pretends to be a retelling of the story of the Biblical David's son Absalom who follows the ill advice of Achitophel to usurp his father's kingdom. Absalom represents the Duke of Monmouth, Charles II's illegitimate son, who was being used by the Whigs with the Earl of Shaftesbury (Achitophel's counterpart) as the main instigator behind Monmouth's claim to the throne. David is, of course, Charles II. As a literary critic, John Dryden was groundbreaking, for he became England's very first comprehensive critic--someone who managed to combine important pieces of past English literary criticism as well as philosophies of the classical Romans and Greeks into a synthesized whole. He was extremely well read but was enough of a free thinker to construct his own arguments about how to write literature well and about what the purposes of literature were.

Answer: Joe Sumner

Joseph "Joe" Sumner was born in 1976 to Sting and Frances Tomelty, the Northern Irish actress who has appeared in films (such as "The Field"), TV series (such as "Inspector Morse", "Strangers", and "Coronation Street"), and in theater productions (such as "Last of the Red Hot Lovers", "Dancing at Lughnasa", and "Ghosts").

He formed a band with his school friend Dan Brown and then joined with guitarist Seton Daunt to create Fiction Plane. The band has released five albums from 2003 to 2015 and served as the opening act for several performances during The Police's 2007 Reunion Tour. He also co-founded the company Vyclone, which uses software and and app to combine various clips of recording video into one movie presented from various points of view. He also founded City of Angels FC, an NPSL soccer team.

Joe provides vocals on "Soul Cake" and "There Is No Rose of Such Virtue" from "If on a Winter's Night . . .".