Pax Hominibus Bonae Voluntatis – Noel: Christmas Eve 1913

On a long drive home from far western Iowa (four miles from South Dakota) I was listening to the St. Olaf Choir on some Minnesota Public Radio station. I asked Siri if she could name the tune they were singing, and she did!

It was Noel: Christmas Eve 1913. I thought, “hey, that’s a John Denver tune”. Lo and behold, it’s a Robert Bridges poem that the Director Emeritus of St. Olaf’s Choir, Kenneth Jennings put to music years ago (AND it’s a John Denver tune). There isn’t a video of the choir singing this interpretation but I found a site with a player and I’ll link to it in the usual spot below. More on John Denver below as well.

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(Please note Noel: Christmas Eve 1913 by the St. Olaf Choir is only available via the St. Olaf Choir bookstore. The other links above will send you to Christmas music from the choir.)

Composer and orchestrator, Lee Holdridge adapted the Bridges poem and set it to music for John Denver as part of the 1979 ABC TV special, John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together. I don’tknow when Jennings wrote his version for choir so no idea who came first. They are related only in they are interpretations of the same poem.

I like them both.

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Here is the original Bridges poem:

Noel: Christmas Eve 1913

Pax hominibus bonae voluntatis 

A frosty Christmas Eve
when the stars were shining
Fared I forth alone
where westward falls the hill,
And from many a village
in the water’d valley
Distant music reach’d me
peals of bells aringing:
The constellated sounds
ran sprinkling on earth’s floor
As the dark vault above
with stars was spangled o’er.
Then sped my thoughts to keep
that first Christmas of all
When the shepherds watching
by their folds ere the dawn
Heard music in the fields
and marveling could not tell
Whether it were angels
or the bright stars singing.

Now blessed be the tow’rs
that crown England so fair
That stand up strong in prayer
unto God for our souls
Blessed be their founders
(said I) an’ our country folk
Who are ringing for Christ
in the belfries to-night
With arms lifted to clutch
the rattling ropes that race
Into the dark above
and the mad romping din.

But to me heard afar
it was starry music
Angels’ song, comforting
as the comfort of Christ
When he spake tenderly
to his sorrowful flock:
The old words came to me
by the riches of time
Mellow’d and transfigured
as I stood on the hill
Heark’ning in the aspect
of th’ eternal silence.

Robert Seymour Bridges

St. Olaf Choir – Noel: Christmas Eve 1913
http://listeninglab.stantons.com/title/noel-christmas-eve-1913/304237/0/?e=1

(If the link above does not open, try here.)

 John Denver – Noel: Christmas Eve 1913