0:00:04 > 0:00:07She brought forth her first-born son
0:00:07 > 0:00:10and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger
0:00:10 > 0:00:14because there was no room for them in the inn.
0:00:14 > 0:00:18# Gloria in excelsis Deo
0:00:18 > 0:00:24# Et in terra pax hominibus
0:00:30 > 0:00:34# Bonae voluntatis... #
0:00:34 > 0:00:38Welcome to the parish church of St Augustine in north London,
0:00:38 > 0:00:42for a programme of sacred music associated with Christmas,
0:00:42 > 0:00:46half an hour of some of the most sublime choral music from the last thousand years,
0:00:46 > 0:00:50performed by Harry Christophers and his choir, the Sixteen.
0:00:50 > 0:00:54# Adoramus te
0:00:54 > 0:00:57# Glorificamus te... #
0:00:57 > 0:01:04We have Renaissance polyphony from Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and Tomas Luis de Victoria,
0:01:04 > 0:01:11anonymous medieval carols and great Christmas music from composers as diverse as JS Bach,
0:01:11 > 0:01:14Felix Mendelssohn, Gustav Holst and William Walton.
0:01:18 > 0:01:23Some of these pieces were written to be performed as part of a church service,
0:01:23 > 0:01:26others are the more familiar carols sung outside the church
0:01:26 > 0:01:29and sometimes disapproved of by the authorities.
0:01:29 > 0:01:35What they all have in common is that sense of Christmas as a profoundly special time of year.
0:01:36 > 0:01:39# Make we joy now in this fest
0:01:39 > 0:01:42# In quo Christus natus est
0:01:42 > 0:01:44# Eya!
0:01:44 > 0:01:48# Make we joy now in this fest
0:01:48 > 0:01:50# In quo Christus natus est
0:01:50 > 0:01:53# Eya!
0:01:53 > 0:01:57# O lux beata Trinitas!
0:01:57 > 0:02:00# He lay between an ox and ass
0:02:00 > 0:02:03# Beside his mother-maiden free
0:02:03 > 0:02:07# Gloria tibi Domine!
0:02:08 > 0:02:11# Make we joy now in this fest
0:02:11 > 0:02:13# In quo Christus natus est
0:02:13 > 0:02:16# Eya!
0:02:16 > 0:02:20# Make we joy now in this fest
0:02:20 > 0:02:23# In quo Christus natus est
0:02:23 > 0:02:25# Eya! #
0:02:27 > 0:02:31The Medieval carol, Make We Joy.
0:02:31 > 0:02:34Italy is very much the cradle of scared music
0:02:34 > 0:02:40and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was the church's first great composer.
0:02:40 > 0:02:44He took his name from the hilltop town of Palestrina,
0:02:44 > 0:02:48just outside Rome, where he was born early in the 16th century.
0:02:48 > 0:02:53In his 50-year career, he wrote hundreds of polyphonic masses and motets for use in church worship,
0:02:53 > 0:02:57especially for the beautiful Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome,
0:02:57 > 0:03:01where he sang as a boy and later served as choir master.
0:03:02 > 0:03:09His Christmas motet, Hodie Christus Natus Est, is a simple expression of seasonal joy for double choir,
0:03:09 > 0:03:16one with sopranos and one without. "Today, Christ is born. Today, angels sing on earth."
0:03:20 > 0:03:27# Hodie Christus natus est
0:03:27 > 0:03:30# Nowell! Nowell! Nowell!
0:03:37 > 0:03:45# Hodie Christus natus est
0:03:45 > 0:03:49# Nowell! Nowell! Nowell!
0:03:55 > 0:04:01# Hodie salvator apparuit
0:04:01 > 0:04:06# Nowell! Nowell! Nowell!
0:04:13 > 0:04:17# Hodie in terra
0:04:17 > 0:04:24# Canunt angeli
0:04:24 > 0:04:31# Canunt angeli
0:04:33 > 0:04:37# Nowell! Nowell! Nowell!
0:04:38 > 0:04:46# Hodie exultant justi dicentes
0:04:49 > 0:04:56# Gloria in excelsis Deo
0:05:14 > 0:05:17# Nowell! Nowell!
0:05:17 > 0:05:19# Nowell! Nowell!
0:05:19 > 0:05:21# Nowell! Nowell!
0:05:21 > 0:05:24# Nowell! Nowell!
0:05:24 > 0:05:27# Nowell! Nowell!
0:05:27 > 0:05:30# Nowell! Nowell!
0:05:30 > 0:05:32# Nowell! Nowell!
0:05:32 > 0:05:36# Nowell! #
0:05:39 > 0:05:43While Palestrina's motet is direct and joyfully expressive
0:05:43 > 0:05:48his contemporary, Victoria, embraces a more mystical vision of the Nativity.
0:05:50 > 0:05:56His motet, O Magnum Mysterium, O Great Mystery, is a meditation on the Virgin birth,
0:05:56 > 0:06:00inspired by St Francis of Assisi's vision of Christmas.
0:06:02 > 0:06:10# O magnum mysterium
0:06:12 > 0:06:20# Et admirabile sacramentum
0:06:27 > 0:06:35# O magnum mysterium
0:06:42 > 0:06:48# Et admirabile sacramentum
0:06:48 > 0:06:56# Et admirabile sacramentum
0:06:58 > 0:07:02# Ut animalia
0:07:02 > 0:07:06# Ut animalia
0:07:06 > 0:07:14# Viderent Dominum natum
0:07:14 > 0:07:21# Viderent Dominum natum
0:07:21 > 0:07:29# Jacentem in praesepio
0:07:59 > 0:08:07# O beata Virgo
0:08:11 > 0:08:19# Cujus viscera meruerunt
0:08:22 > 0:08:30# Portare Dominum
0:08:30 > 0:08:38# Jesu Christum
0:08:38 > 0:08:43# Alleluia, alleluia
0:08:43 > 0:08:48# Alleluia, alleluia
0:08:49 > 0:08:53# Alleluia, alleluia
0:08:53 > 0:08:56# Alleluia
0:08:56 > 0:09:01# Alleluia
0:09:05 > 0:09:10# Alleluia, alleluia. #
0:09:22 > 0:09:25The Latin text, O Magnum Mysterium, set as a motet
0:09:25 > 0:09:30by the Renaissance priest and composer, Tomas Luis de Victoria.
0:09:32 > 0:09:36Outside the church, a different tradition of Christmas music had established itself
0:09:36 > 0:09:38during the Middle Ages, the carol.
0:09:38 > 0:09:45The feast of Christmas must have come as a blessed relief during the long, harsh, Medieval winters.
0:09:45 > 0:09:49But although carols have all the joy and merry making of the season,
0:09:49 > 0:09:52they still frequently contained fragments of church Latin,
0:09:52 > 0:09:56like our next song, In Dulci Jubilo. Now sing with hearts aglow.
0:09:58 > 0:10:02# In dulci jubilo
0:10:02 > 0:10:07# Now sing with hearts aglow
0:10:07 > 0:10:11# Our delight and pleasure
0:10:11 > 0:10:16# Lies in praesepio
0:10:16 > 0:10:21# Like sunshine is our treasure
0:10:21 > 0:10:26# Matris in gremio
0:10:26 > 0:10:30# Alpha es et O
0:10:30 > 0:10:34# Alpha es et O
0:10:37 > 0:10:41# O Jesu parvule
0:10:41 > 0:10:47# For Thee I long always
0:10:47 > 0:10:52# Comfort my heart's blindness
0:10:52 > 0:10:56# O puer optime
0:10:56 > 0:11:02# With all thy loving kindness
0:11:02 > 0:11:07# O Princeps gloriae
0:11:07 > 0:11:11# Trahe me post te
0:11:11 > 0:11:17# Trahe me post te. #
0:11:20 > 0:11:21Now sing and be glad.
0:11:21 > 0:11:26In Dulci Jubilo inspired a massive body of music across Europe.
0:11:26 > 0:11:31JS Bach's Chorale Prelude on the subject, and performed here at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig,
0:11:31 > 0:11:36is a traditional postlude to Christmas services.
0:11:37 > 0:11:43# Ubi sunt gaudia
0:11:43 > 0:11:51# If that they be not there
0:11:52 > 0:12:00# There are angels singing
0:12:00 > 0:12:07# Nova cantica
0:12:07 > 0:12:15# And there the bells are ringing
0:12:15 > 0:12:23# In regis curia
0:12:25 > 0:12:32# O that we were there
0:12:34 > 0:12:41# O that we were there. #
0:12:51 > 0:12:56The rose is one of those medieval symbols, the significance of which is partly lost to us,
0:12:56 > 0:13:00but the rose appears in countless carols from the middle ages.
0:13:00 > 0:13:05There is no rose of such virtue as is the rose that bear Jesu,
0:13:05 > 0:13:11for in this rose, contained was heaven and earth, in little space.
0:13:12 > 0:13:20# There is no rose of such virtue
0:13:21 > 0:13:28# As is the rose that bare Jesu
0:13:30 > 0:13:38# There is no rose of such virtue
0:13:39 > 0:13:46# As is the rose that bare Jesu
0:13:46 > 0:13:52# Alleluia
0:14:02 > 0:14:10# There is no rose of such virtue
0:14:11 > 0:14:19# As is the rose that bare Jesu. #
0:14:24 > 0:14:30There Is No Rose, an anonymous medieval carol comparing the Virgin Mary to a rose.
0:14:32 > 0:14:37In the 20th century, many British composers returned to the middle ages for inspiration,
0:14:37 > 0:14:42leading William Walton to write his slightly quirky modernist update of the medieval carol,
0:14:42 > 0:14:43mixing two languages.
0:14:43 > 0:14:49Make we joy now in this fest, in quo Christus natus est.
0:14:50 > 0:14:53# Make we joy now in this fest
0:14:53 > 0:14:57# In quo Christus natus est
0:14:57 > 0:15:00# Eya
0:15:09 > 0:15:12# A Patre Unigenitus
0:15:12 > 0:15:15# Is through a maiden come to us
0:15:15 > 0:15:20# Sing we of Him and say, "Welcome"
0:15:20 > 0:15:25# Veni, Redemptor gencium
0:15:25 > 0:15:29# Make we joy now in this fest
0:15:29 > 0:15:34# In quo Christus natus est
0:15:34 > 0:15:37# Eya
0:15:46 > 0:15:50# Maria ventre concepit
0:15:50 > 0:15:53# The Holy Ghost was ay her with
0:15:53 > 0:15:58# Of her in Bethlem born He is
0:15:58 > 0:16:03# Consors paterni luminis
0:16:03 > 0:16:07# Make we joy now in this fest
0:16:07 > 0:16:11# In quo Christus natus est
0:16:11 > 0:16:16# Eya
0:16:23 > 0:16:27# O lux beata Trinitas
0:16:27 > 0:16:31# He lay between an ox and ass
0:16:31 > 0:16:36# Beside His mother maiden tree
0:16:36 > 0:16:42# Gloria tibi, Domine
0:16:42 > 0:16:45# Make we joy now in this fest
0:16:45 > 0:16:49# In quo Christus natus est
0:16:49 > 0:16:53# Eya
0:16:53 > 0:16:59# Eya. #
0:17:07 > 0:17:11Our next song is the Victorian classic, Hark! the Herald Angels sing.
0:17:11 > 0:17:17The tune was composed in 1840 by Felix Mendelssohn to commemorate the invention of printing.
0:17:17 > 0:17:21The words had been written 100 years earlier as a Methodist hymn,
0:17:21 > 0:17:23Hark! How All The Welkin Rings.
0:17:23 > 0:17:26In 1855, ten years after Mendelssohn's death,
0:17:26 > 0:17:31an enterprising organist called William Hayman Cummings brought the words -
0:17:31 > 0:17:34now modified to the more familiar Hark! The Herald Angels Sing -
0:17:34 > 0:17:38together with Mendelssohn's tune, to create a classic.
0:17:40 > 0:17:44# Hark the herald angels sing
0:17:44 > 0:17:51# Glory to the newborn King!
0:17:51 > 0:17:56# Peace on earth and mercy mild
0:17:56 > 0:18:01# God and sinners reconciled
0:18:01 > 0:18:07# Joyful, all ye nations rise
0:18:07 > 0:18:13# Join the triumph of the skies
0:18:13 > 0:18:19# With the angelic host proclaim
0:18:19 > 0:18:25# Christ is born in Bethlehem
0:18:25 > 0:18:30# Hark! The herald angels sing
0:18:30 > 0:18:38# Glory to the newborn King!
0:18:40 > 0:18:46# Hail the heav'n-born Prince of Peace
0:18:46 > 0:18:51# Hail the Son of Righteousness
0:18:51 > 0:18:57# Light and life to all He brings
0:18:57 > 0:19:03# Ris'n with healing in His wings
0:19:03 > 0:19:08# Mild He lays His glory by
0:19:08 > 0:19:14# Born that man no more may die
0:19:14 > 0:19:19# Born to raise the sons of earth
0:19:19 > 0:19:26# Born to give them second birth
0:19:26 > 0:19:31# Hark! The herald angels sing
0:19:31 > 0:19:39# Glory to the newborn King! #
0:19:43 > 0:19:49One of my personal favourites is a carol set to music by the English composer, Herbert Howells
0:19:49 > 0:19:53A spotless rose is blowing, sprung from a tender root,
0:19:53 > 0:19:58of ancient seers' foreshowing, of Jesse's promised fruit.
0:19:58 > 0:20:04Its fairest bud unfolds to light amid the cold, cold winter
0:20:04 > 0:20:06and in the dark midnight.
0:20:09 > 0:20:16# A spotless rose is blowing
0:20:16 > 0:20:24# Sprung from a tender root
0:20:25 > 0:20:31# Of ancient seers' foreshowing
0:20:31 > 0:20:38# Of Jesse promised fruit
0:20:38 > 0:20:46# Its fairest bud unfolds to light
0:20:47 > 0:20:54# And in the cold of winter
0:20:58 > 0:21:06# And in the dark midnight
0:21:10 > 0:21:18# The rose which I am singing
0:21:20 > 0:21:26# Whereof Isaiah said
0:21:26 > 0:21:32# Is from its sweet root springing
0:21:32 > 0:21:38# In Mary, purest maid
0:21:38 > 0:21:45# For, through our God's great love and might
0:21:45 > 0:21:52# The blessed babe she bare us
0:21:55 > 0:21:58# In our cold
0:21:58 > 0:22:06# Cold winter's night. #
0:22:10 > 0:22:15Ben Davis singing the solo line of Herbet Howells' 1919 setting of A Spotless Rose.
0:22:18 > 0:22:21Howells grew up singing in the choir at Gloucester Cathedral.
0:22:21 > 0:22:25But a decade earlier, it was another Gloucestershire composer, Gustav Holst,
0:22:25 > 0:22:29who was to set Christina Rossetti's poem, In The Bleak Midwinter,
0:22:29 > 0:22:33to one of the most sweetly melancholic of all carol melodies,
0:22:33 > 0:22:37which he named Cranham after the remote Cotswold village where his mother grew up
0:22:37 > 0:22:41and where she played the harmonium in the local church.
0:22:45 > 0:22:50# In the bleak midwinter
0:22:50 > 0:22:56# Frosty wind made moan
0:22:56 > 0:23:03# Earth stood hard as iron
0:23:03 > 0:23:09# Water like a stone
0:23:09 > 0:23:16# Snow had fallen, snow on snow
0:23:16 > 0:23:22# Snow on snow
0:23:22 > 0:23:29# In the bleak midwinter
0:23:29 > 0:23:37# Long ago
0:23:40 > 0:23:46# What can I give him
0:23:46 > 0:23:52# Poor as I am?
0:23:52 > 0:24:00# If I were a shepherd
0:24:00 > 0:24:06# I would bring a lamb
0:24:06 > 0:24:14# If I were a wise man
0:24:14 > 0:24:20# I would do my part
0:24:20 > 0:24:27# Yet what I can I give him
0:24:29 > 0:24:37# Give my heart. #
0:24:41 > 0:24:44Gustav Holst's In The Bleak Midwinter,
0:24:44 > 0:24:49bringing a taste of the snowy British weather to the traditional nativity scene.
0:24:49 > 0:24:52But whatever the setting,
0:24:52 > 0:24:56the core of the Adoration in the stable remains consistent.
0:24:56 > 0:25:02Shepherds and their flocks, wise men bearing gifts, all focussed on the holy mother and child.
0:25:02 > 0:25:04Even the beasts of the field looking on.
0:25:04 > 0:25:11In the early 1960s, Peter Maxwell Davies chose to set the Latin text O Magnum Mysterium.
0:25:11 > 0:25:14Oh great mystery and wonderful sacrament,
0:25:14 > 0:25:19that beasts should see the new-born Lord lying in a manger.
0:25:19 > 0:25:27# O magnum mysterium
0:25:34 > 0:25:41# Et admirabile sacramentum
0:25:52 > 0:25:59# Ut animalia viderent
0:26:12 > 0:26:19# Dominum natum
0:26:24 > 0:26:32# Jacentem in praesepio... #
0:27:10 > 0:27:14Peter Maxwell Davies' setting, made in the early 1960s,
0:27:14 > 0:27:16of O Magnum Mysterium.
0:27:16 > 0:27:19HE PLAYS SILENT NIGHT
0:27:23 > 0:27:29On Christmas Eve in 1818 in Obendorf, a small village in the mountains north of Salzburg,
0:27:29 > 0:27:31a Christmas legend was created.
0:27:31 > 0:27:38The story is that the church organ was broken
0:27:38 > 0:27:42the priest, Josef Mohr had written a nativity poem, Stille Nacht,
0:27:42 > 0:27:47and the local school teacher, Franz Gruber, was so inspired, that he set it to a simple guitar melody
0:27:47 > 0:27:51that was finished in time for a performance at the midnight mass.
0:27:59 > 0:28:03A suitable ending for this special Christmas episode of Sacred Music.
0:28:05 > 0:28:09# Stille Nacht
0:28:09 > 0:28:14# Heilige nacht
0:28:14 > 0:28:19# Alles schlaft
0:28:19 > 0:28:22# Einsam wacht
0:28:22 > 0:28:27# Nur das traute
0:28:27 > 0:28:31# Hochheilige paar
0:28:32 > 0:28:39# Holder knabe im lockigen haar
0:28:39 > 0:28:47# Schlaf in himmlischer ruh
0:28:48 > 0:28:56# Schlaf in himmlischer ruh. #
0:28:56 > 0:28:59E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk