Yet another of my many posts that starts out with the words “I assumed,” as in “I assumed that the ‘Bell Carol’ was a traditional Christmas folk song.” Well, it’s always helpful to read the info on the sheet music itself. Over the title are the words “to D. V. W., seventy years young,” and at the bottom of the first page is the statement “This carol was commissioned by the Bach Choir in celebration of the seventieth birthday of Sir David Willcocks.” The composition date is 1989, and Willcocks would indeed have been 70 that year since he was born in 1919. Was Willcocks especially fond of Christmas music, or bells, or both? The answer to that question is lost to history, I’m afraid. The author of both words and music is William Mathias, who lived until 1992 and seems to have been composing right up until the end of his life.
So many directions I could go in this material! I could discuss the career of Willcocks, as he’s a fascinating subject in himself. But I’ll direct you to his Wikipedia article to read about him. Or I could discuss the amazingly-productive career of Mathias, tragically cut short by his early death at age 57. But I’ll direct you to this piece written by his daughter instead, which does a great job of portraying the daily life of someone completely driven by and immersed in the world of music. (Read my post about the anthem Mathias wrote for the 1981 wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana. A nice little tidbit here is that Willcocks is the one who delivered that commission to Mathias.)
Since all this work has been done for me, I’m going to concentrate on my main area of interest: the words. While the song is titled “Bell Carol,” there’s a lot of singing in addition to the ringing. Let’s take the bells first, though. There’s a whole interesting backstory about these percussion instruments, with early versions made of pottery dating back several thousand years. Metal replaced pottery because of its resonance, and in the West bells became common in church and clock towers. But guess what? There are no bells in the original Christmas story. The only music we’re told about in the Gospel accounts is the singing of the angels when they appear to the shepherds. Bells became part of Christmas celebrations because of their connections to religious festivities and ceremonies and thus made their way into seasonal music.
I now want to take a look at two specific words repeated throughout the text. First, “alleluia” or “hallelujah,” which comes originally from Hebrew, הַלְלוּ יָהּ or “hallĕlūyāh,” and means “praise to God!” Note the exclamation point; the word is meant as a shout of praise in reaction to the birth of Christ. Pretty straightforward.
But now we get to the second word: “noël.” Oh man! Have I ever chased down the highways and byways to get at the origin of this one! I finally ran across a very helpful blogpost spelling out how we got this word:
The Latin word “natalem” or “natalis” means “birth.” Then, as Latin became less and less of a spoken language and devolved into the Romance languages of Europe, it dropped a lot of letters along the way:
- Natalem > natale. (Final -m drops.)
- Natale > natal. (Final -e drops.)
- Natal > naal. (Medial -t drops.)
- Naal > nael. (Second -a becomes -e.)
- Nael > noël. (First -a becomes -o.)
(“Noel, Noël, Natalis!”—if you’re an etymology nut, the entire article is well worth reading)
The morphed form of the Latin came to mean the holiday itself and also songs about the holiday:
Every year, people sing songs like “The First Noël” at Christmas, and many wonder what a “noël” is. In French, Joyeux Noël means “Merry Christmas.” Our modern English word comes from the Middle English nowel, which Webster’s 1828 Dictionary defined as “a shout of joy or Christmas song.” The roots of the word are the French noël (“Christmas season”), which may come from the Old French nael. This, in turn, is derived from the Latin natalis, meaning “birth.” Since Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Christ, it was natural for people to refer to the celebration as the “nativity” or the “birth.” (“What Is the Meaning of Noël?”)
Those two dots over the “e” are just there to help with pronunciation, by the way, since that marking indicates that the letter underneath it is to be pronounced separately. When the word traveled to England it was sometimes spelled “nowel” or “nowell,” with that “w” replacing the dots (which are called a dieresis or tréma), since English doesn’t typically use diacritical marks. So you’ll see English carols with any of these spelling variations.
There’s also a theory that “noël” is a form of “nouvelle,” French for “new” or, indeed, “news.” The birth of Christ is part of what is called the “good news,” or the Gospel. There’s no reason why both ideas can’t be true, as no etymological journey is ever straightforward.
Mathias’ lyrics follows the main points of the traditional Christmas story, with admonitions for the hearers to rejoice in each verse: Christ is born, the shepherds hear the angels, the wise men (“kings”) come to worship, and a blessing is pronounced on the holy Child and his mother (“Mary mild”). He works in beautiful and striking repetitions of “noël” and “ring.” It seems as though we’re at the end of the ideas, but no—there’s one more verse, a surprising one at least at first blush: “Blessed be the Trinity/Mankind is forever free.” What does the rather dense theological construct of the Trinity have to do with the Christmas story? I have to say that I don’t remember ever seeing the word “trinity” in a Christmas song before—but it’s completely appropriate within the framework of Christian doctrine as it relates to the central event of Christmas: the Incarnation, the “in-flesh-ment” of Christ, coming to earth in human form. I John 4:14 spells this concept out very clearly: “The Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.” (KJV) But we have to get the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, in there, which shows up in the angel’s words to Mary at what is usually called the Annunciation:
And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. (Luke 1:35 KJV)
Honestly, folks—I had no idea when I started writing this post where it was going to end up, but there it is. And Mathias’ great piece ends with a plethora of bell ringing and one final, exultant “Alleluia!”
I always prefer to post live performance videos with these posts, but there were only two of those and they weren’t very good. So here’s an album recording that’s pretty great:
And here are the lyrics:
Born is Jesus Christ the King,
Alleluia, Alleluia.
Joy and peace to all he brings,
Alleluia, Alleluia.
Upon this day all people sing
To hear the news the angels bring.
To free mankind from fear and sin,
And all the bells on earth do ring.
Shepherds saw the angels bright,
Alleluia, Alleluia.
Shining through the dark of night,
Alleluia, Alleluia.
Upon this day all people sing
To hear the news the angels bring.
To free mankind from fear and sin,
And all the bells on earth do ring.
Kings there came and gifts they bare,
Alleluia, Alleluia.
To worship Christ the child so rare,
Alleluia, Alleluia.
To hear the news the angels bring,
To free mankind from fear and sin,
Upon this day all people sing Noel, Noel, Noel, . . . !
Blessed be the Holy Child,
Alleluia, Alleluia.
And his mother Mary mild.
Alleluia, Alleluia.
Upon this day all people sing
To hear the news the angels bring.
To free mankind from fear and sin,
And all the bells on earth do ring.
Blessed be the Trinity,
Alleluia, Alleluia,
Mankind is forever free,
Alleluia, Alleluia.
Upon this day all people sing
To hear the news the angels bring.
To free mankind from fear and sin,
And all the bells on earth do ring.
Ring, ring, ring, ring . . . !
Alleluia!
