O Magnum Mysterium

BREMF Consort of Voices
James Elias director

This concert provides a chance to hear two contrasting Christmas pieces by a selection of European composers of the 16th and early 17th century. The contrast comes from focussing on a different element in the Christmas story. In the first, typified by the words of O magnum mysterium, we are right in the stable, in simplicity and naturalness, yet also reverence and awe. ‘O how great a mystery, and what a wonderful sacrament, that the animals should see God, as a new born boy, lying in a manger’. The scene is one that inspires stillness and quietness. Imagining ourselves there, in the middle of a starlit night, in the presence of the intimacy between a new mother and her child, it’s almost as if we are intruding on the scene, and we certainly wouldn’t want to wake the baby! The compositions often reflect this feeling, as do works that focus on the fragile humanity of the baby Jesus, or the blessedness of the womb of Mary, and although some of these pieces do end with an alleluia, they tend to be more restrained.

The other part of the story is what happens outside the stable, and is quite the opposite of quiet, with, initially the shepherds, but then latterly and metaphorically the whole Christian church, being almost excited to spread the news that, ‘Puer natus in Bethlehem!’. From the almost breathless questioning of the shepherds in Quem vidistis pastores – ‘What did you see? Speak! Tell us who has appeared!’ – to the great chorus of angels in the sky in a variety of texts, the words lend themselves to a much more exuberant celebration of the Christmas story, and each alleluia (or Noé, its less common synonym) is joyful and exultant. In some ways, the contrast is between a devotional lullaby/prayer and something of an attention-grabbing fanfare, and each of these master composers captures something of both in the language of a cappella polyphony.