NOE! NOE!

Music: Traditional French carol
Text: David Warner
Arrangement: Mack Wilberg

French noëls traditionally recount the story of angels announcing the news of Christ’s birth to the shepherds in the fields outside Bethlehem. (The word noël is itself derived from the Latin natalis, meaning “birth.”) Paralleling this humble, rural setting of the shepherds on the hillside, noëls often employ vernacular dialects and rustic-sounding melodies. 

The cheerful Franco-Provençal carol “Noe! Noe!” attributed to the 17th-century author and composer Brossard de Montaney, was originally written in the Bressan dialect of eastern France, and expounds on the joyous exchange between shepherds and angels on that sacred night. David Warner’s paraphrase on the original lyrics retains this bucolic imagery and its message that the Christ Child came to redeem the lowliest of all. This arrangement features the Bells on Temple Square.