Personent Hodie

If there is a more beautiful song than "Personent Hodie" from any musical genre, I have yet to hear it.  It’s difficult not to be entranced by its simple melody and rhythm.  It has a quality that captures the inherent beauty and innocence of childhood,  while specifically celebrating the Christmas Holiday.  Say what you want about the late Middle Ages, but they knew how to write a tune.

"Personent Hodie" has a long and interesting history.  The song comes from the 1582 Finnish book Piae Cantiones, a collection of Medieval songs in Latin.  The book was the product of Swedish Lutheran cleric Jaakko Suomalainen, who may have come across its contents during his clerical studies in Prague.  Apparently there was a great tradition of Finnish and Swedish students going to Prague for their ecclesiastical training. Even so, there are some indications that the melody dates back to 1360 from a town called Moosburg in Bavaria.

The lyrics have a long history too.  The most common lyrics date to the 1582 Finnish song book and it is thought to have been written to celebrate the Feast of the Holy Innocents on December 28.  Those lyrics, in Latin, are included in this post.  Some historians believe, that these lyrics may have been written as a parody of an older song "Intonent Hodie," written in 1360 for the December 6 Feast of St. Nicholas.  It is worth noting that St. Nicholas was not associated with Christmas or the figure Santa Claus at that time.

The song was popular in Finland through the 19^th century and at some point caught the attention of English speaking people.  There is no shortage of English translations, but the most common one is credited to a protégé of Gustav Holst, James M. Joseph.  It is much used today and as often as not, the song will be renamed to reflect the first line of this translation:  "On this Day Earth Shall Ring."

By the way, James M. Joseph is a woman who used a masculine pseudonym.  I can’t imagine why.  Her real name is Jane M. Joseph.  She had a distinguished career as a composer and was actively involved with the preparation of the “Neptune” portion of Holst’s tone poem The Planets.

In 1916, Holst himself made an arrangement for orchestra and uniform voices which is still in use today.

It is interesting to see the differences between a literal English translation and Jane Smiths.  I am including a link to Wikipedia where you can read, side by side, the lyrics to "Personent Hodie," a literal English translation, Jane Smith’s translation, and "Intonent Hodie."  This will not be on the midterm; it’s just for your own enjoyment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personent_hodie#cite_note-OBC-5

If you don’t have time for all of that, just listen to a recording of this wonderful song.  There are many excellent recordings of many distinctive arrangements from full choirs with organ, to small period instrument ensembles, to Wayne Shorter’s jazz rendition.  I have yet to come across one that I didn’t enjoy, but my favorite may be an arrangement for harp and girl’s choir.  The following link will take you to a clip from Rick Steve’s European Christmas show.  "Personent Hodie" performed by the Norweigan Girls Choir at the Aker Church, will begin about 20 seconds into the clip.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umId4Hoq97s&list=RDumId4Hoq97s#t=8

Lyrics to "Personent Hodie"1582

1. Personent hodie voces puerulæ
Laudantes iucundė qui nobis est natus,
Summo Deo datus, et de vir-vir-vir, 
et de vir-vir, et de virgineo ventre procreatus.

2. In mundo nascitur, pannis inuoluitur,
Præsepi ponitur stabulo brutorum,
Rector supernorum, perdidit dit dit

Perdidit dit dit, perdidit, dispolia princeps infernorum.

3. Magi tres venerunt, munera offerunt

Paruulum inquirunt, stellulam sequendo,
ipsum adorando, Aurum, thus, thus,
aurum thus, thus, thus
Aurum thus et myrrham ei offerendo.

4. Omnes clericuli, pariter pueri,
Cantent ut angeli, aduenisti mundo,
Laudes tibi fundo. ideo o, o,

Ideo, o, o, ideo gloria in excelsis Deo.

The following sources were referenced in writing this post:

A Collection of Christmas Carols; selected, transcribed and edited by Benjamin Bloomfield; self-published fifth edition 2013

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personent_hodie#cite_note-OBC-5

http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/NonEnglish/personent_hodie.htm

c. December 2015, Martin Blanco