A Choral Christmas Sacred Music at Christmas


A Choral Christmas

Similar Content

Browse content similar to A Choral Christmas. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!

Transcript


LineFromTo

She brought forth her first-born son

0:00:040:00:07

and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger

0:00:070:00:10

because there was no room for them in the inn.

0:00:100:00:14

# Gloria in excelsis Deo

0:00:140:00:18

# Et in terra pax hominibus

0:00:180:00:24

# Bonae voluntatis... #

0:00:300:00:34

Welcome to the parish church of St Augustine in north London,

0:00:340:00:38

for a programme of sacred music associated with Christmas,

0:00:380:00:42

half an hour of some of the most sublime choral music from the last thousand years,

0:00:420:00:46

performed by Harry Christophers and his choir, the Sixteen.

0:00:460:00:50

# Adoramus te

0:00:500:00:54

# Glorificamus te... #

0:00:540:00:57

We have Renaissance polyphony from Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and Tomas Luis de Victoria,

0:00:570:01:04

anonymous medieval carols and great Christmas music from composers as diverse as JS Bach,

0:01:040:01:11

Felix Mendelssohn, Gustav Holst and William Walton.

0:01:110:01:14

Some of these pieces were written to be performed as part of a church service,

0:01:180:01:23

others are the more familiar carols sung outside the church

0:01:230:01:26

and sometimes disapproved of by the authorities.

0:01:260:01:29

What they all have in common is that sense of Christmas as a profoundly special time of year.

0:01:290:01:35

# Make we joy now in this fest

0:01:360:01:39

# In quo Christus natus est

0:01:390:01:42

# Eya!

0:01:420:01:44

# Make we joy now in this fest

0:01:440:01:48

# In quo Christus natus est

0:01:480:01:50

# Eya!

0:01:500:01:53

# O lux beata Trinitas!

0:01:530:01:57

# He lay between an ox and ass

0:01:570:02:00

# Beside his mother-maiden free

0:02:000:02:03

# Gloria tibi Domine!

0:02:030:02:07

# Make we joy now in this fest

0:02:080:02:11

# In quo Christus natus est

0:02:110:02:13

# Eya!

0:02:130:02:16

# Make we joy now in this fest

0:02:160:02:20

# In quo Christus natus est

0:02:200:02:23

# Eya! #

0:02:230:02:25

The Medieval carol, Make We Joy.

0:02:270:02:31

Italy is very much the cradle of scared music

0:02:310:02:34

and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was the church's first great composer.

0:02:340:02:40

He took his name from the hilltop town of Palestrina,

0:02:400:02:44

just outside Rome, where he was born early in the 16th century.

0:02:440:02:48

In his 50-year career, he wrote hundreds of polyphonic masses and motets for use in church worship,

0:02:480:02:53

especially for the beautiful Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome,

0:02:530:02:57

where he sang as a boy and later served as choir master.

0:02:570:03:01

His Christmas motet, Hodie Christus Natus Est, is a simple expression of seasonal joy for double choir,

0:03:020:03:09

one with sopranos and one without. "Today, Christ is born. Today, angels sing on earth."

0:03:090:03:16

# Hodie Christus natus est

0:03:200:03:27

# Nowell! Nowell! Nowell!

0:03:270:03:30

# Hodie Christus natus est

0:03:370:03:45

# Nowell! Nowell! Nowell!

0:03:450:03:49

# Hodie salvator apparuit

0:03:550:04:01

# Nowell! Nowell! Nowell!

0:04:010:04:06

# Hodie in terra

0:04:130:04:17

# Canunt angeli

0:04:170:04:24

# Canunt angeli

0:04:240:04:31

# Nowell! Nowell! Nowell!

0:04:330:04:37

# Hodie exultant justi dicentes

0:04:380:04:46

# Gloria in excelsis Deo

0:04:490:04:56

# Nowell! Nowell!

0:05:140:05:17

# Nowell! Nowell!

0:05:170:05:19

# Nowell! Nowell!

0:05:190:05:21

# Nowell! Nowell!

0:05:210:05:24

# Nowell! Nowell!

0:05:240:05:27

# Nowell! Nowell!

0:05:270:05:30

# Nowell! Nowell!

0:05:300:05:32

# Nowell! #

0:05:320:05:36

While Palestrina's motet is direct and joyfully expressive

0:05:390:05:43

his contemporary, Victoria, embraces a more mystical vision of the Nativity.

0:05:430:05:48

His motet, O Magnum Mysterium, O Great Mystery, is a meditation on the Virgin birth,

0:05:500:05:56

inspired by St Francis of Assisi's vision of Christmas.

0:05:560:06:00

# O magnum mysterium

0:06:020:06:10

# Et admirabile sacramentum

0:06:120:06:20

# O magnum mysterium

0:06:270:06:35

# Et admirabile sacramentum

0:06:420:06:48

# Et admirabile sacramentum

0:06:480:06:56

# Ut animalia

0:06:580:07:02

# Ut animalia

0:07:020:07:06

# Viderent Dominum natum

0:07:060:07:14

# Viderent Dominum natum

0:07:140:07:21

# Jacentem in praesepio

0:07:210:07:29

# O beata Virgo

0:07:590:08:07

# Cujus viscera meruerunt

0:08:110:08:19

# Portare Dominum

0:08:220:08:30

# Jesu Christum

0:08:300:08:38

# Alleluia, alleluia

0:08:380:08:43

# Alleluia, alleluia

0:08:430:08:48

# Alleluia, alleluia

0:08:490:08:53

# Alleluia

0:08:530:08:56

# Alleluia

0:08:560:09:01

# Alleluia, alleluia. #

0:09:050:09:10

The Latin text, O Magnum Mysterium, set as a motet

0:09:220:09:25

by the Renaissance priest and composer, Tomas Luis de Victoria.

0:09:250:09:30

Outside the church, a different tradition of Christmas music had established itself

0:09:320:09:36

during the Middle Ages, the carol.

0:09:360:09:38

The feast of Christmas must have come as a blessed relief during the long, harsh, Medieval winters.

0:09:380:09:45

But although carols have all the joy and merry making of the season,

0:09:450:09:49

they still frequently contained fragments of church Latin,

0:09:490:09:52

like our next song, In Dulci Jubilo. Now sing with hearts aglow.

0:09:520:09:56

# In dulci jubilo

0:09:580:10:02

# Now sing with hearts aglow

0:10:020:10:07

# Our delight and pleasure

0:10:070:10:11

# Lies in praesepio

0:10:110:10:16

# Like sunshine is our treasure

0:10:160:10:21

# Matris in gremio

0:10:210:10:26

# Alpha es et O

0:10:260:10:30

# Alpha es et O

0:10:300:10:34

# O Jesu parvule

0:10:370:10:41

# For Thee I long always

0:10:410:10:47

# Comfort my heart's blindness

0:10:470:10:52

# O puer optime

0:10:520:10:56

# With all thy loving kindness

0:10:560:11:02

# O Princeps gloriae

0:11:020:11:07

# Trahe me post te

0:11:070:11:11

# Trahe me post te. #

0:11:110:11:17

Now sing and be glad.

0:11:200:11:21

In Dulci Jubilo inspired a massive body of music across Europe.

0:11:210:11:26

JS Bach's Chorale Prelude on the subject, and performed here at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig,

0:11:260:11:31

is a traditional postlude to Christmas services.

0:11:310:11:36

# Ubi sunt gaudia

0:11:370:11:43

# If that they be not there

0:11:430:11:51

# There are angels singing

0:11:520:12:00

# Nova cantica

0:12:000:12:07

# And there the bells are ringing

0:12:070:12:15

# In regis curia

0:12:150:12:23

# O that we were there

0:12:250:12:32

# O that we were there. #

0:12:340:12:41

The rose is one of those medieval symbols, the significance of which is partly lost to us,

0:12:510:12:56

but the rose appears in countless carols from the middle ages.

0:12:560:13:00

There is no rose of such virtue as is the rose that bear Jesu,

0:13:000:13:05

for in this rose, contained was heaven and earth, in little space.

0:13:050:13:11

# There is no rose of such virtue

0:13:120:13:20

# As is the rose that bare Jesu

0:13:210:13:28

# There is no rose of such virtue

0:13:300:13:38

# As is the rose that bare Jesu

0:13:390:13:46

# Alleluia

0:13:460:13:52

# There is no rose of such virtue

0:14:020:14:10

# As is the rose that bare Jesu. #

0:14:110:14:19

There Is No Rose, an anonymous medieval carol comparing the Virgin Mary to a rose.

0:14:240:14:30

In the 20th century, many British composers returned to the middle ages for inspiration,

0:14:320:14:37

leading William Walton to write his slightly quirky modernist update of the medieval carol,

0:14:370:14:42

mixing two languages.

0:14:420:14:43

Make we joy now in this fest, in quo Christus natus est.

0:14:430:14:49

# Make we joy now in this fest

0:14:500:14:53

# In quo Christus natus est

0:14:530:14:57

# Eya

0:14:570:15:00

# A Patre Unigenitus

0:15:090:15:12

# Is through a maiden come to us

0:15:120:15:15

# Sing we of Him and say, "Welcome"

0:15:150:15:20

# Veni, Redemptor gencium

0:15:200:15:25

# Make we joy now in this fest

0:15:250:15:29

# In quo Christus natus est

0:15:290:15:34

# Eya

0:15:340:15:37

# Maria ventre concepit

0:15:460:15:50

# The Holy Ghost was ay her with

0:15:500:15:53

# Of her in Bethlem born He is

0:15:530:15:58

# Consors paterni luminis

0:15:580:16:03

# Make we joy now in this fest

0:16:030:16:07

# In quo Christus natus est

0:16:070:16:11

# Eya

0:16:110:16:16

# O lux beata Trinitas

0:16:230:16:27

# He lay between an ox and ass

0:16:270:16:31

# Beside His mother maiden tree

0:16:310:16:36

# Gloria tibi, Domine

0:16:360:16:42

# Make we joy now in this fest

0:16:420:16:45

# In quo Christus natus est

0:16:450:16:49

# Eya

0:16:490:16:53

# Eya. #

0:16:530:16:59

Our next song is the Victorian classic, Hark! the Herald Angels sing.

0:17:070:17:11

The tune was composed in 1840 by Felix Mendelssohn to commemorate the invention of printing.

0:17:110:17:17

The words had been written 100 years earlier as a Methodist hymn,

0:17:170:17:21

Hark! How All The Welkin Rings.

0:17:210:17:23

In 1855, ten years after Mendelssohn's death,

0:17:230:17:26

an enterprising organist called William Hayman Cummings brought the words -

0:17:260:17:31

now modified to the more familiar Hark! The Herald Angels Sing -

0:17:310:17:34

together with Mendelssohn's tune, to create a classic.

0:17:340:17:38

# Hark the herald angels sing

0:17:400:17:44

# Glory to the newborn King!

0:17:440:17:51

# Peace on earth and mercy mild

0:17:510:17:56

# God and sinners reconciled

0:17:560:18:01

# Joyful, all ye nations rise

0:18:010:18:07

# Join the triumph of the skies

0:18:070:18:13

# With the angelic host proclaim

0:18:130:18:19

# Christ is born in Bethlehem

0:18:190:18:25

# Hark! The herald angels sing

0:18:250:18:30

# Glory to the newborn King!

0:18:300:18:38

# Hail the heav'n-born Prince of Peace

0:18:400:18:46

# Hail the Son of Righteousness

0:18:460:18:51

# Light and life to all He brings

0:18:510:18:57

# Ris'n with healing in His wings

0:18:570:19:03

# Mild He lays His glory by

0:19:030:19:08

# Born that man no more may die

0:19:080:19:14

# Born to raise the sons of earth

0:19:140:19:19

# Born to give them second birth

0:19:190:19:26

# Hark! The herald angels sing

0:19:260:19:31

# Glory to the newborn King! #

0:19:310:19:39

One of my personal favourites is a carol set to music by the English composer, Herbert Howells

0:19:430:19:49

A spotless rose is blowing, sprung from a tender root,

0:19:490:19:53

of ancient seers' foreshowing, of Jesse's promised fruit.

0:19:530:19:58

Its fairest bud unfolds to light amid the cold, cold winter

0:19:580:20:04

and in the dark midnight.

0:20:040:20:06

# A spotless rose is blowing

0:20:090:20:16

# Sprung from a tender root

0:20:160:20:24

# Of ancient seers' foreshowing

0:20:250:20:31

# Of Jesse promised fruit

0:20:310:20:38

# Its fairest bud unfolds to light

0:20:380:20:46

# And in the cold of winter

0:20:470:20:54

# And in the dark midnight

0:20:580:21:06

# The rose which I am singing

0:21:100:21:18

# Whereof Isaiah said

0:21:200:21:26

# Is from its sweet root springing

0:21:260:21:32

# In Mary, purest maid

0:21:320:21:38

# For, through our God's great love and might

0:21:380:21:45

# The blessed babe she bare us

0:21:450:21:52

# In our cold

0:21:550:21:58

# Cold winter's night. #

0:21:580:22:06

Ben Davis singing the solo line of Herbet Howells' 1919 setting of A Spotless Rose.

0:22:100:22:15

Howells grew up singing in the choir at Gloucester Cathedral.

0:22:180:22:21

But a decade earlier, it was another Gloucestershire composer, Gustav Holst,

0:22:210:22:25

who was to set Christina Rossetti's poem, In The Bleak Midwinter,

0:22:250:22:29

to one of the most sweetly melancholic of all carol melodies,

0:22:290:22:33

which he named Cranham after the remote Cotswold village where his mother grew up

0:22:330:22:37

and where she played the harmonium in the local church.

0:22:370:22:41

# In the bleak midwinter

0:22:450:22:50

# Frosty wind made moan

0:22:500:22:56

# Earth stood hard as iron

0:22:560:23:03

# Water like a stone

0:23:030:23:09

# Snow had fallen, snow on snow

0:23:090:23:16

# Snow on snow

0:23:160:23:22

# In the bleak midwinter

0:23:220:23:29

# Long ago

0:23:290:23:37

# What can I give him

0:23:400:23:46

# Poor as I am?

0:23:460:23:52

# If I were a shepherd

0:23:520:24:00

# I would bring a lamb

0:24:000:24:06

# If I were a wise man

0:24:060:24:14

# I would do my part

0:24:140:24:20

# Yet what I can I give him

0:24:200:24:27

# Give my heart. #

0:24:290:24:37

Gustav Holst's In The Bleak Midwinter,

0:24:410:24:44

bringing a taste of the snowy British weather to the traditional nativity scene.

0:24:440:24:49

But whatever the setting,

0:24:490:24:52

the core of the Adoration in the stable remains consistent.

0:24:520:24:56

Shepherds and their flocks, wise men bearing gifts, all focussed on the holy mother and child.

0:24:560:25:02

Even the beasts of the field looking on.

0:25:020:25:04

In the early 1960s, Peter Maxwell Davies chose to set the Latin text O Magnum Mysterium.

0:25:040:25:11

Oh great mystery and wonderful sacrament,

0:25:110:25:14

that beasts should see the new-born Lord lying in a manger.

0:25:140:25:19

# O magnum mysterium

0:25:190:25:27

# Et admirabile sacramentum

0:25:340:25:41

# Ut animalia viderent

0:25:520:25:59

# Dominum natum

0:26:120:26:19

# Jacentem in praesepio... #

0:26:240:26:32

Peter Maxwell Davies' setting, made in the early 1960s,

0:27:100:27:14

of O Magnum Mysterium.

0:27:140:27:16

HE PLAYS SILENT NIGHT

0:27:160:27:19

On Christmas Eve in 1818 in Obendorf, a small village in the mountains north of Salzburg,

0:27:230:27:29

a Christmas legend was created.

0:27:290:27:31

The story is that the church organ was broken

0:27:310:27:38

the priest, Josef Mohr had written a nativity poem, Stille Nacht,

0:27:380:27:42

and the local school teacher, Franz Gruber, was so inspired, that he set it to a simple guitar melody

0:27:420:27:47

that was finished in time for a performance at the midnight mass.

0:27:470:27:51

A suitable ending for this special Christmas episode of Sacred Music.

0:27:590:28:03

# Stille Nacht

0:28:050:28:09

# Heilige nacht

0:28:090:28:14

# Alles schlaft

0:28:140:28:19

# Einsam wacht

0:28:190:28:22

# Nur das traute

0:28:220:28:27

# Hochheilige paar

0:28:270:28:31

# Holder knabe im lockigen haar

0:28:320:28:39

# Schlaf in himmlischer ruh

0:28:390:28:47

# Schlaf in himmlischer ruh. #

0:28:480:28:56

E-mail [email protected]

0:28:560:28:59

Download Subtitles

SRT

ASS