New-York tribune., 1907-12-22


There shone wondrous cleaning star.
Which led us right.
Its glittering beams before US shone'
That We might find the lowIy throne,
Bow low and homage pay
In caskets here our gifts we bring
Frankincense. gold: oseo-iu
such treasures It's our love that brings
Thy blessings give unto the kings
AS they 90 on their way
OF French carols or Noels as they called.
y1r Frank Danrosch has introduced four into the
nroprammeg of the Christmas concerts Of the
Musical Art Society in the arrangements made for
cboirs Of mixed voices by T. A. Gevaert, director
of the Rovai Conservatory of Brussels, and one
of the finest Of living musical scholars The texts
of these songs are even simple and quaint
than those of the legendary English carols One
of them called LES Eosins' ("The Nelghbors').
sung last Thursday evening. suggested a charac
ferIstfc which is said TO be peculiar TO the Noels
of France that of localizng the Nativity; that Is.
telling the story of Christ's birth as IL it had
happened in the immediate vicinity of the mar
rator. The first speaker asks his neighbor il ms
had heard the noisy disturbance in the preceding
night a disturbance which had sorely tried his
temper, mingled with voices calling on the shep-
herds awake. He IS then told that God was
born in the night. and was lying in a stable, TOO
poor even for swaddling bands. Thereupon tho
first speaker proposes 10 remove the Babe. Mary
and Joseph to his House, which, by the pres
ence of the Holy Ones would be made more
glorious than kings palace DR.. Stainer was
unable TO find an English carol which laid the
scene of the Nativity in England, though he
had it from the Rev. Henry Ramsden Bralnley
in the Towneiey Mysteries the Nativity is
made take place we'll known common near
Wakefield. The celebrated French Noel of
this description. said DR.. staner. in lecture at
oxford in $780, ''is one known Les Bourgeois de
Chastres written in the sixteenth century, in the
Department dIlle-et-vilaine. by a priest of the
NJ Sfn+ se afS Had fha fAven inn
Noel because this particular town of Chastres
renamed 'Arpajon' in 1720. All the places
mentioned will be found in the neighhorhood in
the valley OF the Orge: st. Germans. st. Clement.
St Yon Breligny, Boissy and others. This
Noel became popular in France that other
towns tried to steal it by merely altering the
names of all the places mentioned"
The current number of THE Musician" pub
Hshed by Oliver Ditson Company, Boston. contains
an article or French Christmas songs by Julien
Tiersot the most eminent of present day students
of folksong. 1t is illustrated with number of
carols. but is chiefly interesting for its curious
learning. NJ. Tiersot, speaking with scientific ex-
actness refuses TO identify the French noels with
sem-popular cIass-that is. songs made for the
people and sung by them, but written by scholars
and preserved in books Neither do they consti-
tute genuinely religious type, in spite of their
theme and name. Their origin was secular and
also their style. In fact like the English wassaiI
songs they preserve relics of pagan festivals with
Christianity words for the old melodies
The Christmas songs do not, however, bear traces
of so great antiquity the songs of other
festivals, notably those OF May. No French noel
says NJ Tiersot, be traced back automatically
further than the fifteenth century. NJ Gevaert at
.ributed the two songs sung by the Musical Art
Society last Thursday to the thirteenth century,
but he gave no for his belief. The in
genuous anachronisms illustrated in the noels which
localize the Nativity paralIeled In one of the
songs preserved by Gevaert which describes the
child Jesus worshipping in the conventional manner
of the faithful:
Jesus tender babe,
Said his rosary;
On his mothers breast
All his prayers said he.