Advent Calendar

Advent Calender

Hello world, join us for the most optimistic Christmas ever! We will share a song every day until the 24th of December in our Advent Calender. Please listen:

On the 2nd. of December Nordic Voices sings about the mystery of Christmas. Composer and organist Tomás Luis de Victoria was born in the walled city of Ávila, birthplace of the influential Spanish mystic Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582). Like many of his contemporaries, Victoria ventured to Rome at an early age to learn his art. It has been speculated that he received some training from the great Italian master Palestrina; Victoria was certainly one of the few composers in Rome able to master the subtleties of Palestrina’s style. In 1575, he was ordained into the priesthood, but he continued to compose throughout his life, holding a variety of posts in Italy and, from 1587 until his death, his native Spain. Victoria’s many masses, motets, and other religious compositions brought him a great deal of fame, no doubt enhanced by his ability to publish most of his works: all but one of the eight volumes of his collected works consist entirely of music published during his lifetime.

Although many of his works are imbued with Spanish mysticism and a deeply-felt spirituality, Victoria more often favored music of a joyful nature. Such is the case with his lively Quem vidistis, pastores?, rich with imitation and lush suspensions. Victoria makes the most of the six parts, playing the upper three voices against the lower three to great antiphonal effect. Dividing the work into two contrasting parts (prima and secunda pars) was a common practice in Renaissance motet-writing. Here, Victoria links the two sections with a refrain on the last two lines of text. While the musical material is identical in both, he adds interest by re-voicing the melodic lines.

The justly famous motet O magnum mysterium uses a sublime text from the Christmas Vespers. Victoria’s use of a serenely interweaving polyphony at the opening bars leads to a hushed chordal declamation at the words “O beata Virgo.” An extended “Alleluia” section, first in triple meter, then in duple, concludes the motet.

Quem vidistis, pastores?

Whom have you seen, shepherds?

Dicite, annuntiate nobis, quis apparruit?

Speak, proclaim to us, who has appeared?

Natum vidimus, et choros Angelorum

“We saw the newborn Child and choirs of Angels

collaudantes Dominum, alleluia!

praising God, alleluia!”

Dicite, quidnam vidistis?

Tell us, what have you seen?

et annuntiate nobis, Christi nativitatem.

And proclaim to us the birth of Christ.

Natum vidimus, et choros Angelorum

“We saw the newborn Child and choirs of Angels

collaudantes Dominum, alleluia!

praising God, alleluia!”

On the third of December, we will share a recording of Pierre de Manchicourt. He was born in 1510 in France. Nordic Voices enjoys singing the best and sadest music of the last 500 years. Few records of Manchicourt’s life survive: information about his life and work is obtained primarily from publications of his works. The earliest known information indicates that in 1525 he was a choirboy at Arras. By 1539, he was provost at the cathedral in Tours, where he would have had access to a considerable library of the works of the great master, and previous incumbent, Johannes Ockeghem. For at least nine years, from 1545 to 1554, he held the post of maître de Chapelle at Nôtre-Dame Cathedral in Tournai. On the death of the incumbent, Nicolas Payen, in 1559, Manchicourt was appointed maestro de Capilla Flamenca (master of the Flemish chapel) at the court of Philip II in Madrid, which post he held until his death five years later. The fact that Pierre Attaingnant, publisher of the French Royal Court, devoted his fourteenth and final volume of motets in 1539 entirely to Manchicourt’s work (an honour he bestowed on no other and emulated by Flemish publishers Susato and Phalèse in 1545 and 1554 respectively) bears testament to the composer’s reputation in his day. Around the time of his death, Manchicourt’s highly polyphonic style of composition rapidly went out of fashion — a fate shared with his contemporaries Nicolas Gombert, Jacobus Clemens and Thomas Crecquillon — as the liturgical reforms of the Council of Trent took hold, marking the transition from the High Renaissance to the less florid Late-Renaissance style of Victoria and Palestrina. The kings of the earth are gathered, they have come together as one, saying: Let us go to Judea and ask: “Where is he that is born a great king, whose star we have seen?” Alleluia. And when they came, they found the young child with Mary, his mother, and, falling down, they worshipped him, offering him gold, incense and myrrh. Alleluia.

English translation

The kings of the earth are gathered,
they have come together as one, saying:
Let us go to Judea and ask:
“Where is he that is born a great king,
whose star we have seen?” Alleluia.

And when they came, they found the young child
with Mary, his mother,
and, falling down, they worshipped him,
offering him gold, incense and myrrh. Alleluia.

Fjerde desember er en dag for Gisle Kverndokk. Det er på tide med en ny lytting av Gisle Kverndokks Tidens Fuge. Gisle Kverndokk er nært tilknyttet Nordic Voices med flere store bestillinger. Fuge der Zeit har en tittel påvirket av poeten Paul Celan (1920-1970), fra hans dikt «Auge der Zeit» Når Kverndokk tar i bruk fire dikt av Celan som han sidestiller med «Forkynneren» der det jo heter «Alt har sin tid» er det åpnebart at Gisle forsøker å stanse tiden, og heller skape et rom å lytte i. Tiden blir til rom: LYTT!

I dag er det 5. desember og dag 5 i Nordic Voices sin julekalender. Vi deler Clemens som heter Clemens ikke Pave. Jacob(us) Clemens non Papa (også Jacques Clément eller Jacob Clemens non Papa; født ca. 1510-1515, formodentlig i Middelburg, død mellom 1556 og 1558 i Diksmuide) var en flamsk renessansekomponist, en av de mest betydelige i tida mellom Josquin des Prez og Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. Han holdt for å være motettens mester.

Lite er kjent om non Papas tidlige liv. Sent på 1530-tallet publiserte Pierre Attaingnant en samling av hans chansons i Paris. I 1544 nevnes Clemens non Papa som Sangmeister ved St. Donatian i Brugge, i 1550 som sanger og komponist ved katedralen i ’s-Hertogenbosch.

non Papas egentlige navn var Jacques Clement, og årsaken til hans selvvalgte navn er usikkert. Kanskje ville han ikke blandes sammen med dikteren Jacobus Papa som også levde i Ieper (Ypres), eller kanskje han ikke ville forveksles med pave (papa) Klemens VII.

Til forskjell fra mange samtidige landsmenn ser det ikke ut til at Clemens non Papa var i Italia; i det minste finnes ingen italiensk innflytelse i musikken hans. Han var en svært produktiv komponist, spesielt om en tar i betraktning at karrieren hans bare varte i knapt to tiår.

CLEMENS NON PAPA’S SEKS STEMMIGE O MAGNUM MYSTERIUM, ble første gang utgitt i 1555, ble sunget på femte matins i julen. Matins er noe munkene synger to timer etter midnatt.

Clemens-stykket er et paraliturgisk motett og har som mål å formidle tekstens budskap, slik at det kan brukes flere steder i gudstjenestene i løpet av julesesongen for å gjøre feiringen mer strålende eller mer høytidelig.

Nordic Voices are still singing. All our concerts are cancelled, but now when we celebrate the 6th of December in our Advent Calendar, we want to share the music of Maja S. K. Ratkje with this video of Audun Notevarp Sandvold. Please spend some minutes, and hear it all through. Everything is going to be alright! We love to meet you soon at concerts. SOUND ON!

On the 7th of December Nordic Voices Sing Victoria, Vidi speciosam, music that moves people. The music of Tomás Luis de Victoria has continued to move people for more than 400 years, crossing geographical, cultural, and even religious barriers. Embedded within the deep spirituality with which the composer endowed it, Nordic Voices now brings the music of Victoria to a contemporary audience, giving this everlasting repertoire a renewed freshness. Victoria himself invites you to listen to his music, arguing that

it alleviates concerns and appeases the spirit, with an almost indispensable delight (Missarum Libri Duo, 1583).

And, as you will see, if anything stands out about these compositions it is precisely their ability to move people, to move those professing to be followers of any faith, as well as those who are not believers of any.

Etter flere års arbeid er innspillingen av “Beatitudes” av Henrik Ødegaard med Nordic Voices og Oslo kammerkor klar for lansering nå i 2020. Verket ble bestilt av Oslo internasjonale kirkemusikkfestival. Grappa musikkfortlag slipper utgivelsen midt i oktober. Produsent er Jørn Pedersen og dirigent er Håkon Daniel Nystedt.

Beati estis qui maledixerint vobis

Nordic Voices sings Bysjan Bysjan Båne, a traditional folksong, in Frank Havrøy’s excellent arrangement for the six a cappella vocalists. A lullaby that works!

https://youtu.be/RbUkamPGps4

Pierre de Manchicourt, Laudate Dominum, omnes gentes

text adapted from Psalm 117

O praise the Lord, all ye nations;

praise him, all ye peoples:

the Lord is risen, alleluia.

There is one Christ who reigneth;

O praise the Lord, all ye nations:

Christ triumpheth, alleluia.

There is one Christ who restoreth;

praise him, all ye peoples:

Christ glorifieth, alleluia.

There is one Christ who crowneth;

O praise the Lord, all ye nations, alleluia.

Clap your hands, therefore, all ye nations,

for his merciful kindness is ever more toward us, alleluia;

and the truth of the Lord endureth for ever:

praise him, all ye peoples.

11. of December: Lasse Thoresen Himmelske fader ( Heavenly Fader)

Ragnar Vigdal is an amazing singer who has found his own personal way of performing pietistic texts, with all the fervour and pietistic humility that belongs to this spirtual tradition. The tonality of the melodies seems to come straight from the Middle East, and it has a vibrant ormamentation. The thirds in the melodies are neutral – halfway between major and minor. If you use them in a triad, it sounds rather out of tune. The leading note is also neutral. And the other notes deviate slightly from the tempered scale. Lasse Thoresen has found a way of harmonising this scale, and discovered how it can be extended through modulations. Sometimes the music sounds medieval, sometimes oriental. The piece begins with breathing to calm the body and soul for mediation and prayer.

On the 12th of December Nordic Voices Sing Victoria, Salve Regina, music that moves people. The music of Tomás Luis de Victoria has continued to move people for more than 400 years, crossing geographical, cultural, and even religious barriers. Embedded within the deep spirituality with which the composer endowed it, Nordic Voices now brings the music of Victoria to a contemporary audience, giving this everlasting repertoire a renewed freshness. Victoria himself invites you to listen to his music, arguing that

it alleviates concerns and appeases the spirit, with an almost indispensable delight (Missarum Libri Duo, 1583).

Today, the 13. of December we share Karheinz Stockhausen Stimmung. It is also introduced by his daughter Christel Stockhausen Hektoen who lives in Oslo. Stockhausen himself attributes a month spent walking among ruins in Mexico as his primary influence too Stimmung, Stimmung recreating that ‘magic’ space. On the other hand, he also describes the snow on frozen Long Island Sound in February and March 1968 (when he was composing Stimmung in Madison, Connecticut), as “the only landscape I really saw during the composition of the piece” (Cott 1973, 163). In a letter to Gregory Rose written on 24 July 1982 (printed in the liner notes to Hyperion CDA66115), he describes how in the small house his wife Mary had rented it was only possible for him to work at night because their two small children needed quiet during the day. He could not sing aloud, as he had done initially, but began to hum quietly, listening to the overtone melodies. Mary reports that Stockhausen first discovered the technique when listening to their small son Simon producing multiple tones while humming in his crib after falling asleep. In this way, Stockhausen became “the first Western composer to use this technique of singing again—in the Middle Ages it had been practiced by women and children in churches, but was later entirely supplanted by masculine Gregorian music”

Det er 14. desember og viktig å huske på at det feires jul over hele verden. Her er Chacona «A la vida bona». Et møte mellom europeisk musikk og indiansk tradisjonsmusikk sammen Det Norske Blåse Ensemble.

Historisk musikk, primært fra barokken, som blandes med lokal, livlig spillestil og rytmer. Musikken tar utgangspunkt i historisk spillemetodikk, blandet med et naturlig instinkt for livlig spill og heftige rytmer. Noe av musikken som fremføres, er fra notemateriell som er funnet under restaureringsarbeidet av fallerte kirker – musikk som peker helt tilbake til da jesuittene på midten av 1500-tallet ville spre katolisismen og kristne de innfødte indianerne. Den gamle barokkmusikken er farget av lokal rytmikk og gjenoppstår i flotte arrangementer av Stian Aareskjold, trompetist i Det Norske Blåse Ensemble. På platen medvirker også trompetist og dirigent Mark Bennett, som er kunstnerisk leder for prosjektet, og sangere fra Nordic Voices.

We are getting closer to Christmas, it´s the 15th of December. Listen to

Gisle Kverndokk VII Alleluia from Mass for six voices:

Valen’s Piano Sonata No.2, op.38 (1941) appeared to be a perfect basis for a six-part vocal ensemble. It has two movements and is permeated by a polyphonic thought process. Gisle Kverndokk himself has given a little glimpse into his creative process:

Before I began to compose the Kyrie and Gloria, I sat down to study Valen’s second piano sonata. The opening theme bowled me over. It was not only beautiful, but full of possibilities, and with a rhythmic pulse that seemed overwhelming. I analyzed the motif and improvised on it, studied the intervals, and twisted and turned them exactly as one does when one is learning a strict twelve-tone technique. But Fartein Valen has a freer relationship to the atonal technique, so it was easy to make tonal associations from his opening theme. This consists of two parts, two tonal extremes that have much to do with one another. E major, E minor, and C-sharp minor are harmonic possibilities in the first part of the theme, while the second part builds on an augmented D-flat major triad which moves towards F major. Here everything revolves around keys that are related to one another notes of E-flat minor and is related to the mediant of the first motif. “I grasped this aspect and created an opening where I placed these notes on top of one another like a cluster, and the result was a powerful cry”, wrote Kverndokk in a commentary on the Gloria’s creation. The text of this movement is taken from the account in Luke of the angels praising God after they told the shepherds in the Bethlehem fields about the new-born Messiah. Kverndokk’s movement begins as a joyful general exclamation from the faithful. Here, too, the singing grows to an intense “uncontrolled” murmur of voices, before a more meditative and thoughtful conclusion suddenly begins.

Gisle Kverndokk (b. 1967) studied composition at The Norwegian Academy of Music and The Juilliard School in New York. He has won prizes for several of his orchestral works, which have been performed by all the major orchestras in Norway. He has been music director of several music theatre productions in Norway, Germany, the USA, and Canada.

New music with a buzz! The 16th of December we will give you beauty that calls for action. Nordic Voices in haunting music by Bjørn Bolstad Skjelbred.

With this music Nordic Voices incorporates ecological perspectives in new music. Composer Bjørn Bolstad Skjelbred has written music that calls for action. The Bee Madrigals is a cycle of six songs presenting a dystopic development – a possible non-distant future – if we don’t solve the issues that cause the mysterious condition called Colony Collapse Disorder. Bees, as we know, are essential for vast pollination work throughout the flowering world. CCD seems to have many causes, but one of the most significant is the use of chemicals in agriculture. Composer Bjørn Bolstad Skjelbred has turned this gloomy development into beautiful and wistful music for six voices alone, specially written for Nordic Voices.

On the 17th of December, we share one of our newest releases with the music of the composer Henrik Ødegaard. O vos omnes
This text (from Lamentations 1:12) exists in a shorter form, as an antiphon, and a longer form, as a responsory (the fifth of the nine responsories for Matins of Holy Saturday).

A responsory is a sung response to a Scripture reading. It has two parts: a respond and a versicle. After the versicle (indicated below by V. and usually sung by a single voice or a smaller group), the second part of the respond (indicated below by a bullet) is repeated.

O vos ómnes qui transítis per víam, atténdite et vidéte:

Si est dólor símilis sícut dólor méus.
V. Atténdite, univérsi pópuli, et vidéte dolórem méum.

Si est dólor símilis sícut dólor méus.

Translation

O all you who walk by on the road, pay attention and see:

if there be any sorrow like my sorrow.
V. Pay attention, all people, and look at my sorrow:

if there be any sorrow like my sorrow.

On the 18th of December, we share Music composed for us by Georg Freidrich Haas. You don’t always know what to expect when you commission a new piece from a composer. Sometimes you end up with music you think you have heard before someplace. Music has this amazing ability to draw lines between dots in your brain, dots of past experiences, lived lives and days that have passed. Some music tends to light up the same areas, the chords feel familiar to something you have heard before, the lines are close to something you have sung ten years ago, and the texts have been used by thousands of composers before this, and your composer has tried to wrench out the music of the same lyrics. You sing it with the feeling that you are a part of a well-known tradition, you have no problems of solving the technical challenges, everything lines up beautifully, and the noise that comes out of the ensemble is well defined within the concept of a classical vocal ensemble.

But sometimes you come across music that you think you have never heard before. You open the score, and you realize that this time you are dealing with a composer that has a vision of a sound that you have no clue of how you are going to find. The aural world that you enter is a world where it seems like no human being has yet put his/her feet. It is one small step for a composer, one giant leap for a performer.

The piece by Georg Freidrich Haas, Hertervig-Studien, is a monumental piece of music. Lasting over 24 minutes, it is a tour de force of vocal music, challenging the outer limits of what our voices are capable of producing. The text used in the work is made out of some of the titles of the paintings of Lars Hertervig. Hertervig was a Norwegian painter, born in 1830 at Borgøya, a small island outside of Tysvær. This part of Norway is deeply religious, scarcely populated, and quite tough when it comes to weather conditions. It is not very likely that anyone could emerge from these conditions, and become one of Norway’s most well-known painters, but the talent of Lars Hertervig was impossible to overlook. Although studying in Düsseldorf, and earning a high ranking among his contemporary colleagues, his mental state got in his way. In 1856 he was hospitalized at Gaustad Sykehus, one of the most well-known hospitals for mentally ill in Oslo. He left the hospital in 1858, but was slowly forgotten and put on social welfare until his death in 1902. The piece by Georg Friedrich Haas is pre-study of the music used in his opera Melancholia from 2008. Haas says this about the work:

“At the moment I am working on an opera, Melancholia, in response to a commission from the Paris Opéra. The libretto is by Jon Fosse, and the protagonist the Norwegian painter Lars Hertervig (1830-1902). The music of these Hertevig Studies has no direct connection with the opera but derives rather from my explorations of the personality and work of this fascinating painter.

The basis for the text consists of titles of his works, which are sung/spoken/whispered in Norwegian. These titles are ranged one after the other as isolated speech events, in such a way that no connections emerge, no story is narrated.

Hertervig painted landscapes, but in these landscapes, one does not find – as one does with several of his artistic colleagues – idyllic representations of nature (and certainly none of those notorious patriotic representations of people ‘wedded to the soil’ at work – or relaxing from their labours). Instead, these landscapes depict mystical, spiritual, often oppressively sinister, threatening worlds. It is a kind of happy coincidence that these mystical worlds mapped exactly onto the reality of those natural worlds which Hertervig found in the forests, lakes, rocks and fjords around him.

“At the end, only the word Landskap (‘landscape’) is sung, repeated maniacally like a scream.

Det er 19. desember og viktig å huske på at det feires jul over hele verden. Her er Romance del Conde Claros. Et møte mellom europeisk musikk og indiansk tradisjonsmusikk sammen Det Norske Blåse Ensemble.

Today on the 20th of December we share Bjørn Bolstad Skjelbred
Still in Silence and in this version we sing together with

Nils Petter Molvaer. We would also like to share a text from the CD written by the composer and phiosopher David Rothenberg.

Human beings and honeybees have much in common. We two are the only species that use symbolic communication. Sure, you all know humans talk and write and invent strange signs to stand for things, but it is rather surprising that honeybees dance out information telling each other where the flowers and pollen can geographically be found. They are nature’s original GPS creatures, as their movements stand for specific information, a feat no other animals besides us have achieved.

Bees we know are also essential for vast pollination work throughout the flowering world. And we love them for the many kinds of honey they can produce. With all this admiration, it is so shocking that human transformation of the planet seems to be leading to the bees’ demise; a mysterious ailment called Colony Collapse Disorder has overtaken the world of honeybees and their numbers decline alarmingly each year.

So, what is a composer to do about this dire situation? Music is in a way a non-symbolic form of communication – all kinds of animals including humans make it, from nightingales to humpback whales, from crickets to cicadas. Music is that sound focused around its own form and shape, not needing to stand for anything outside itself. Yet composers want to respond to what they learn about the world, be it beautiful or tragic. Let us sing a requiem for the dying bees, and surround ourselves with beautiful sounds that might save them.

Bees are more dancers than musicians, but their hums and buzzes suggest all kinds of sonic possibilities. The Finnish entomologist Olavi Sotavalta was able to identify different species of bees solely by the pitch of their hums, as he was one of few bug scientists who also had a degree in music. The composer of Bee Madrigals, Bjørn Bolstad Skjelbred, certainly knows his bee science, and the uncertainty of the situation has inspired him: “The 6 madrigals approach this phenomenon from different angles, from the call of nature (‘The Warning’), through the shamanic vision from within the bee hive (‘I Was No Alien’) and the hectic discussion in an online commentary following a documentary on the subject (‘It Adds Up/The Blog’) and the final ‘Still in Silence,’ which reflects on the future possibility of a silent nature after all these valuable insects have disappeared.”

But is the buzz of a bee actually useful musical material? I wrote a whole book Bug Music around the idea that humans may have learned our love for rhythm and noise from insects, and though I wasn’t really thinking of bees, their importance in our lives suggests that their whirring sound certainly matters. Skjelbred starts his thrummingly beautiful piece with a simple bee-like tone but soon moves to searching harmonies and swirling human overtones. The second moment emerges with whispers, hushed words that fear the absence of bees, and we yearn for the hum that we know will soon come. The fourth movement starts with everyone’s swirling confusion around the issue; as with almost everything else to worry about, there is no shortage of information – what we lack is any of idea to cut through the mess of it to some kind of certainty. Skjelbred softens the agitation by setting the spoken argument above querying parallel harmonies. Next comes the scurrying whispers saying c-c-c-c-colony collapse and chills run through the listeners’ spines. The end sounds terrifying, hearkening back to the 1960s fear in the works of Rachel Carson, who warned us that unless we scaled back the rampant spraying of pesticides, in the near future no birds would sing. The world listened, some chemicals were banned, and our birds still sing. But pesticides are one of the big threats to bees, and we are still transfixed all these years later by a fear of silence. In the final movement, our thoughts of the future remain transfixed on this sad possibility, ‘still in silence.’ The phrase is repeated, overlapping in many voices in a canonical form, resembling an ancient Gregorian chant that echoes unceasing devotion to God.

Today we have many great forces to choose to exalt, and the value of nature is certainly one that needs our adoration. Disappearing bees maybe just one tragedy in the midst of our rampant destruction of the natural world in which we and all other creatures evolved. We need to save them. Sing all around this problem and the gravity of this problem will stay with you in the lap of beauty. Witness this beautiful piece and keep the challenges faced by bees close to your heart.

21. desember, solsnudagen synger vi Solbøn av Lasse Thoresen. Dette stykket er basert på en enkel sang, nærmest en vuggesang. Denne har Lasse Thoresen notert, med alle små mikrotonale og ornamentale nyanser, etter Berit Opheim, som igjen har sangen fra Agnes Buen Garnås. “Tru soli måtte skine, yvi småbådni mine. Yvi topp, yvi tre, yvi folk, yvi fe, yvi åker og eng, yvi hus og hjem, og yvi Jomfu Marias silkeseng.” Dette er er teksten som ga komponisten ideen til å la en sangmelodi med bare fem tonehøyder og en varighet på 25 sekunder bli utkomponert til over et ti minutter langt verk. Teksten er en bønn om lyd, om at lyd og varme skal omhylle alle kjære ting. Tidsstrekket i verket er åpnngsprosessen henimot lyset, men nå i en klanglig forstand. Og det indre lys – det bryter frem innenfra sangtonene selv: når overtonene som bor i hver enkelt sangers tone får komme frem i dagen, en etter en, og i strålebunter.

Det er 22 . desember og i dag presenterer vi Henrik Ødegaards O Magnum Mysterium. Henrik Ødegaards stykke er basert på det gamle reponsaoriet som omhandler Jesus fødsel. Der mange komponister velger en introvert tilnærming til teksten, gir Henrik Ødegaard den en ganske utadvendt behandling, men allikevel med varme og inderlihet. Dette gjør stykket uhyre publikumsvennlig (veldig populær i Japan i på vår julekonsert på Okinawa i fjor) samtidig som det er engasjerende å synge, en kombinasjon som ført stykket opp på mange konsertprogram.

On the day before Chrismas eve, the 23rd of December we sing O Domine Jesu Christe of Tomás Luis de Victoria.

The music of Tomás Luis de Victoria has continued to move people for more than 400 years, crossing geographical, cultural, and even religious barriers. Embedded within the deep spirituality with which the composer endowed it, Nordic Voices now brings the music of Victoria to a contemporary audience, giving this everlasting repertoire a renewed freshness. Victoria himself invites you to listen to his music, arguing that

it alleviates concerns and appeases the spirit, with an almost indispensable delight (Missarum Libri Duo, 1583).

På 24. desember, julaften synger vi den fine julesangen “Det syng i natt”

God jul fra alle i Nordic Voices.

Stille – stille.

Det syng i natt:

Tonar milde om lova skatt.

Sus i lufta av venger små.

Englar kjem ifrå himmel blå.

Stille – stille.

Dei syng sin song:

Fred på jorda enno ein gong.

Himlen lyser i vester klår.

Stjerna blinkar på ferda vår.

Stille – stille.

Det syng eit kor.

Ljodar vidt over heile jord:

Barnet sveipt i ei krubbe er.

Gud er komen oss alle nær.

Stille – stille.

Dei gleda gav.

Songen stig over land og hav:

Himmelsonen i verda går.

Jesus Kristus er vegen vår.