Christmas in the Nieuwe Kerk matinee)

What are you going to listen to?

Gloria in excelsis Deo, glory to God in the highest, sang the angels on the night of Jesus' birth, according to biblical tradition. With a little imagination, this makes it the oldest Christmas carol ever sung. Since then, the voices have never fallen silent in welcoming the Christ Child with song.

Singing about Christmas

Although Christmas, like other holidays such as Easter and Pentecost, was celebrated with church ceremonies, this holiday still held a special place in the hearts of believers. Holding a tiny baby in your arms is something that evokes feelings of emotion in many people. That is why the birth of Christ appealed to everyone's imagination beyond the walls of the church. People sang about it, sometimes jubilantly, sometimes tenderly, sometimes with hope. That is why, over the centuries, thousands of songs have been written and sung about the Christmas story.

The oldest Christmas carol in this program is Adeste fidelis, known in English as O Come, All Ye Faithful. It dates back to the Middle Ages and was probably written by a Portuguese king.

Luther was a great lover of Christmas and wrote several Christmas carols himself. Following his example, many more were written, which are still sung today in Germany and, in translation, in many other countries. Praetorius composed the famous song Es ist ein Ros entsprungen and Paul Gerhardt wrote Wie soll ich dich empfangen in the seventeenth century . Bach used this song in his Christmas Oratorio from 1734, a collection of six cantatas intended for the Christmas season. The second cantata tells the story of the shepherds in the fields around Bethlehem. It begins with a beautiful Sinfonia in which the shepherds, represented in the original by oboes, sing the newborn Jesus to sleep on their pipes. Also German, but now from the Catholic tradition, is Silent Night, written in 1818 by a priest and organist in a small village near Salzburg. They could never have imagined that their simple lullaby would become the most famous Christmas carol of all time.

Christmas Carols

A country where Christmas became a veritable cult in the nineteenth century was, of course, England. It was King Albert, Queen Victoria's husband, who turned Christmas celebrations at the palace into a big family event that was widely emulated. But Dickens' famous book A Christmas Carol was also a huge stimulus. It made Christmas carols incredibly popular. These Christmas carols were sung in church, on the street, and at home, often to familiar melodies that came from all over. For example, The First Nowell and We Wish You a Merry Christmas are based on old melodies from the southwest of England. Gloria in excelsis Deo is an old French Christmas carol, and France is also the origin of the branle, an old folk dance that is the source of Ding! Dong! Merrily on high. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing was already known in the eighteenth century with a different melody, but became a true classic with Mendelssohn's melody. New carols were also written in England in the twentieth century, as evidenced by Roger Quilter's The Cradle in Bethlehem from 1945.

Christmas carols around the world

New Christmas songs are still being written all over the world. The Ukrainian Christmas and New Year song Stjedrik dates back to 1916 and became known worldwide in its English version, Carol of the Bells . American gospel singer Michael W. Smith wrote the beautiful song All is Well. Feliz Navidad by José Feliciano originated in Puerto Rico. He released it in 1970 and it was one of the biggest Christmas hits that year. The most recent Christmas song in this program dates from 1998. Koppången was originally a Swedish folk song by Per-Erik Moraeus. A year later, Christmas lyrics were set to the melody and recorded on CD by soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, making it the most famous Christmas carol from Sweden. And so, 2000 years after the singing angels, Christmas carols are still being written and sung.

Kees Wisse

Tonight's ensemble

Justa de Jong presenter

RO Brass

Erwin ter Bogt trumpet
Robert-Jan Hoffman trumpet
David Pérez Sánchez trumpet
Elizabeth Chell horn
Mirjam Steinmann horn
Tim Dowling trombone
Wouter Iseger bass trombone
Elias Gustafsson tuba
Georgi Tsenov percussion