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For centuries, the celebration of Christmas has inspired some of the world's most beloved songs, hymns and musical arrangements
An overview of Christmas music classics. (Photo by MIA STUDIO - STOCK.ADOBE.COM)
By Emmanuelle Giuliani | France
The Christmas season is marked by numerous customs around the world, some of them very ancient.
Preparations begin with Thanksgiving in the United States on the last Thursday of November and on St. Philip's Day for Orthodox Christians on November 28. And the celebrations are then extended to Epiphany on January 6, especially for the Italians and Spaniards.
Many holiday customs were revived -- even recreated -- over the last two centuries in the wake of A Christmas Carol, which Charles Dickens published in 1843.
Dickens' work inspired Gustav Holst to write a suite for a mixed choir and piano for Rosetti's In the Bleak Midwinterin 1906. It also influenced Scottish composer Thea Musgrave's 1979 opera A Christmas Carol.
Additionally, there is the irresistible Nutcracker Suite, which Peter Tchaikovsky wrote in 1892 based on one of the Tales of Hoffmann from1816.
The Nutcracker's enchanting melodies have become almost synonymous with Christmas.
From the secular world to the Church
These musical traditions are plentiful and diverse in style. In synchrony with the expectation of a Savior, greet the return of light to our dark winter and the return of light.
An entire repertoire of secular songs, such as noels and carols, was born in the Middle Ages in Central European, Iberian, Romanesque and Anglo-Saxon countries.
The liturgy often borrowed them to ensure the participation of the faithful. They found their way into choirs initiated by the Lutheran Reformation, Catholic hymns and motets.
From Josquin des Prés to Olivier Messiaen, composers have also drawn from this heritage and enriched it with works of religious or secular inspiration, vocal or instrumental.
On the first Sunday of Advent, and again on the Feasts of St. Nicholas (Dec. 6) and St. Lucy (Dec. 13) we begin preparing for Christmas with decorations, special foods, sweets and also seasonal songs.
One thinks of the French nursery rhyme of The Legend of Saint Nicholas, made famous by Gérard de Nerval in 1842.
Even more popular, the Neapolitan song Santa Lucia, written by Teodore Cottrau in 1849, also belongs to this imaginary folklore magnified by the Romantics as an echo to the national aspirations of the peoples.
The musicians of Baroque Europe had already illuminated the weeks of Advent.
In the German traditions, there was Johann Sebastian Bach, of course, and his various use of the chorale Nun komm der Heiden Heiland (Come now, Saviors of the Pagans): the cantatas BWV 61 and BWV 62 composed respectively in 1714 and 1724, in addition to chorale preludes for the organ (BWV 599, 659 to 661).
Before him, Dietrich Buxtehude had composed several cantatas around this same chorale.
Following their example, Felix Mendelssohn entrusted a choir in 1838 with the text of Psalm 95, translated into German by Martin Luther.
Catholic musicians were inspired by the O Antiphons that are sung for the Magnificat at Vespers for the seven days before Christmas.
Carlo Gesualdo wrote a six-part motet in 1603 called, O Oriens splendor lucis aeternae, while Marc-Antoine Charpentier, composed a work of seven O Antiphons around 1693.
In the breath of the organ
There's also a rich repertoire of organ pieces associated with the Advent period, often taken from popular hymns.
Among them is Charles Tournemire's Christmas Cycle of his Mystical Organ(1927-1932), written for the Third Sunday of Advent (Gaudete).
Jean-François Dandrieu called his second book of his organ pieces, which was published posthumously in 1759, Noëls.
And the great organist Pierre Cochereau (1924-1984) wrote his famous improvisations of 16th century French song Laissez paître vos bêtes (Let Your Animals Graze).
Abbé Pellegrin (Jean-Philippe Rameau's librettist) revised that into Venez divin Messie (O Come Divine Messiah) to make it one of France's best beloved Christmas "hits".
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