Suffering and Death in the Music of Nativity

Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Massacre of the Innocents, 1565-67

Maria Batova

The nativity of Christ is the easiest Christian holiday for people to relate to since, after all, we were all born. The music dedicated to Christmas and created over the centuries has as many themes as the Gospel narratives. There is the good news from the angels, the gifts of the Magi, the joy of the coming of the Savior into the world. There are also the simple maternal lullabies, sung on behalf of Mary and of any spectator who witnesses the nativity at the manger of the infant. And there is a topic that cannot be ignored when contemplating the event of the nativity of Christ: death. The proximity of death and birth is implied in non-Christian lullabies as well, because any newborn has just come from nothingness, he is still fragile, and his cradle looks so much like a coffin. In folk magic traditions, the newborn is often sung songs about death in order to drive death away. . . . Our topic is special, however. After all, Christ was born into the world to die. In the Creed, the incarnation and suffering are mentioned together. The theme of the future passion of Christ is always present in the symbolism of worship. Christmas lullaby lyrics sometimes include the theme of the future cross. The subject of death is at the heart of the murder of innocent babies by Herod in Bethlehem. Any Christmas pageant includes Rachel crying for her children and finding no consolation. In past centuries, when child mortality was incredibly high, many generations of Christian women drew support from the image of the inconsolable Rachel.

These themes are found in the earliest Christmas carols. The Church remembers the Bethlehem infants a few days after the Nativity of Christ, on December 28 in the Catholic Church and December 29 in the Orthodox Church. In an Oxford manuscript from the twelfth century there is a dancing song about the Bethlehem infants with this text:

Magno gaudens gaudio nostra pueritia
sallat cum tripudio propter hec natalia!
Ad honorem innocentum sonent lire timpana.
Lete mentis argumentum cantus sit et organa!

Iure festi cum celesti curia
gratulemur et letemur, eya!
Nostra sint familia iocus et letitia,
risus pax et gratia cum perenni gloria.

Gaudeamus, pueri, Herodes defunctus est.
Facti sumus superi hostis noster victus est.
Penam ferens infernalem surgere non poterit
et nos agnum immortalem sequimur quo ierit.

Let our company of boys, rejoicing with great joy, celebrate in song and dance this anniversary feast! In honour of the innocents let harps and drums sound! Let songs and instruments witness to a happy mind!

Rightly festive, let us rejoice and be merry with the court of heaven, eia! Let sport and gladness, laughter, peace and courtesy make up our household!

Boys, let us rejoice! Herod is dead, we have conquered, our enemy is overcome. Suffering eternal torment, he will not be able to rise again, and we shall follow the immortal lamb wherever he may go. 

It is important to note that the expressive means of medieval music differ from ours in the most radical way. There may be tragedy in the text, but the music does not reflect it in a way that is familiar to our ears. The Oxford carol is a dance of joy, a dance of victory. And medieval carols, more than the songs of the following centuries, were danceable (which sometimes led to tensions with the Church). This carol was sung by the boys who were both students of the singing school and ministers. They were also called innocentes.

Another famous later carol that has the theme of the Bethlehem massacre is Coventry Carol, which was part of the sixteenth-century Christmas mystery The Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors. The mystery was performed by the city guilds. The author of the text is unknown, but we owe its public appearance to Robert Croo, the ambitious organizer of Coventry’s festivities. Working on this annual performance in Coventry for twenty years, he did a variety of jobs, from editing and rewriting texts to tailoring costumes and making sets and props, eventually saving enough money to play the part of God. The book, rewritten by Croo, dates from 1534, though it appeared in print only in the nineteenth century (1817, published by Thomas Sharp).

Lully, lulla, thow littell tine child,
By by, lully, lullay thow littell tyne child,
By by, lully, lullay! 

O sisters too, how may we do
For to preserve this day
This pore yongling for whom we do singe
By by, lully, lullay? 

Herod, the king, in his raging,
Chargid he hath this day
His men of might in his owne sight
All yonge children to slay,— 

That wo is me, pore child, for thee,
And ever morne and may
For thi parting nether say nor singe,
By by, lully, lullay. 

Every mystery about Christmas features a crying Rachel and people who comfort her. In the mystery of Coventry, this lullaby was sung by three women from Bethlehem to their children after an angel appeared to Joseph and warned of the danger (the female roles were played by men, however, so the song is for alto, tenor, and baritone parts). This carol may be the most famous of those that have survived from the Renaissance times. Perhaps the following fact played a role in its popularity: during World War II, BBC television broadcast the song on Christmas 1940 after the bombing of Coventry, combining the sound of the song with footage of the ruins of the cathedral. Since then, the song has been part of many classical and popular performers’ repertoire. It sounds like a sign of the times in the new British TV series Call The Midwife (at Christmas in the maternity home, midwives go to the ward with candles singing the carol). One popular interpretation is sung by the vocal ensemble Pentatonix.

In the Baroque era, word and music united in a new alliance, giving rise to a new musical rhetorical vocabulary. This system has ramified and became more complicated over time. Especially recognizable rhetorical figures include symbolic musical portrayals of joy and sorrow, laughter and fear, indecision, sighing, and stepping. The music of the Baroque era was so saturated with the word that gradually and without words—with only instrumental means—it learned to talk about the deepest and most subtle things. Special treatises were written about this, and in our time studying them has yielded a huge body of literature. Even if we are listening to a vocal piece in an unfamiliar language, knowing this system of baroque musical symbols helps us to better understand the content.

As an example of the nativity theme in early Baroque music, consider the Canzonetta Spirituale sopra alla Nanna by Tarquinio Merula (1595–1665). The musical content is completely determined by the text. Only two bass notes alternate throughout the music (the ostinato principle)—an expression, on the one hand, of the visual and tactile character of a lullaby, of the act of cradling of the infant, and on the other hand, of the persistence of tragic thoughts about the child’s destiny on the cross. An unstable harmonic pattern creates further instability, as though the infant’s cradle swayed over the gaping agony of the coming cross. The soprano part traces out melodic waves designed to symbolize excitement, now restrained, now breaking through. This effect is created by chromatic notes, rhetorical pauses, and features of melodic movement. Only in the last stanza, the continuous movement stops, finding a fulcrum: the child is still securely in the mother’s hands.

As the text of this lullaby is easy to find, I will cite only especially characteristic fragments. Common lyrics for a lullaby (“Or ch’è tempo di dormire, dormi, dormi figlio e non vagire. Perchè, tempo ancor verrà, Che vagir bisognerà. Deh ben mio deh cor mio fa, Fa la ninna ninna na”) are conjoined from the very beginning with an alarming ostinato figure. Soon an explanation is found for this: now you are drinking milk from your mother's breast, but you will be given bile and vinegar to drink; now you are sleeping in a soft bed, but you will cry out in a loud voice, calling the Father from the cross; these arms and legs will be chained and then pierced with nails; this beautiful forehead will be stained with blood from a crown of thorns. As for the mother, in the words of Simeon the God-Receiver, “a sword will pierce her heart.” On the one hand, emotionally, this is a very baroque text, on the other, it is so simple that one involuntarily recalls the early Italian laudas:

Over prendi questo latte / dalle mie mamelle intatte / perchè ministro crudele / ti prepara aceto e fiele. // Amor mio sia questo petto / or per te morbido letto / Pria che rendi ad alta voce / l’alma al Padre sulla croce. // Posa or queste membra belle / vezzosette e tenerelle / perchè poi ferri e catene, / gli daran acerbe pene. // Queste mani e questi piedi / ch’or con gusto e gaudio vedi, / Ahimè! come’in vari modi, / passeran acuti chiodi! // Questa faccia gratiosa, / rubiconda or più di rosa, / sputi e schiaffi sporcheranno / con tormento e grand’affanno. . . . / Dormi dunque figliol mio, / Dormi, dormi, pur redentor mio, / perchè poi con lieto viso, / ci vedrem in Paradiso.

Ultimately, this image of a mother pondering over the cradle about the future fate of her child is as universal as motherhood itself. That is why there are so many disturbing lullabies, even if they do not talk about Christ, including Franz Schubert’s Ammenlied by, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Lullaby in a Storm, and many more.

The image of the grieving Virgin is found in another cantata of the Baroque era, The Blessed Virgin’s Expostulations by Henry Purcell. Formally, the text by Nahum Tate tells the story of Mary’s experiences during the long search for the twelve-year-old child Jesus. The text itself mentions the flight to Egypt, which is why the cantata is often performed at Christmas. The dramatic nature of the text also allows this cantata to be included in the repertoire of Holy Week. Interestingly, this work, which tells of grief and hope, caught the attention of the 31-year-old Benjamin Britten during Advent in 1944. He arranged the basso continuo part for piano, thereby bringing this music closer to the modern performer.

Having lost Jesus in the crowd, Mary fears that the child is lost forever. She recalls how she was once called the Blessed One and laments that now she is the most unfortunate of mothers. In fear, she calls on the Archangel Gabriel (a modern listener will remember a similar ecstatic call from Sergei Prokofiev’s The Fiery Angel):

Tell me, some Pitying Angel quickly say,
Where does my Soul’s sweet Darling Stay?
In Tyger’s, or more cruel Herod’s way?
Ah! rather let his little Footsteps press
Unregarded through the Wilderness,
Where milder Savages resort,
The desert’s safer than a Tyrant’s Court.

Why, fairest Object of my Love,
Why dost thou from my longing Eyes remove?
Was it a Waking Dream, that did fortell thy Wondrous Birth?
No Vision from above?
Where’s Gabriel now, that visited my cell?
I call, I call: Gabriel!
He comes not; flatt’ring Hopes, farewell.

Me Judah’s Daughters once caress’d.
Call’d me of Mothers, the most bless’d.
Now—fatal Change—of Mothers most distress’d.
How shall my Soul its Motions guide?
How shall I stem the various tide,
Whilst Faith and Doubt my Lab’ring Soul divide?
For whilst of thy dear Sight beguil’d,
I trust the God, but oh! I fear the Child.

Purcell’s cantata consists of several parts, as was often the case in the mature baroque era. The recitative parts are replaced by arioso. Various musical and rhetorical means are used to express protest, fear, call, questioning, recollection of a promise, and the collapse of hope.

Perhaps the most convincing musical-theological expression of the inextricable connection between the incarnation and suffering is found in the work of Johann Sebastian Bach. Reflection on Christ’s life and personality took center stage in all of Bach’s music. One of his later works, the Mass in B Minor, includes musical reflections on this particular theme. In one of the central parts of the Credo section, the chorus “Et incarnatus est“ is juxtaposed with the duet “Et in unum Dominum” and the chorus “Crucifixus.”

The duet is a setting of the text “Et in unum Dominum Iesum Christum, Filium Dei unigenitum, et ex Patre natum ante omnia saecula. Deum de Deo, lumen de lumine, Deum verum de Deo vero, genitum, non factum, consubstantialem Patri; per quem omnia facta sunt. Qui propter nos homines et propter nostram salutem descendit de caelis.” The two natures of Christ, divine and human, are symbolized by the combination of two echoing duet voices in one tessitura (soprano and alto); the combination of two homogeneous voices is also found in the instrumental parts (two violins, two oboes d’amore). The duet is written in a major key, its music light and distinct. For the first time in the Mass, the name of Christ is pronounced, and at the very beginning there is no imprint of future suffering on it. But as soon as the story of salvation appears in the text (“propter nos homines et propter nostram salutem descendit de caelis”), the music begins to change almost imperceptibly. A descending motive (catabasis) appears in the instrumental parts, chromatic notes appear in the harmonies, and the main intonational figure of the duet, which in major has the character of an affirmation, is transformed into a rhetorical figure of sighing (sospirando). On the words “descendit de caelis,” a musical-rhetorical figure of the cross appears in the viola part. Bach tells us in musical language that the descent from heaven already foreshadows the cross.

After this is a chorus on the text “Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine, et homo factus est.” Incarnation and nativity are evoked here not in majestic and joyful colors (as, for example, in George Frideric Handel’s chorus “For unto us a Child is born” from the Messiah oratorio), but as a kenosis or self-emptying. Bach uses all the musical means at his disposal to express this theme: a minor key, a slow tempo, chromatic harmonies, and a subdued instrumentation consisting only of strings (a significant musical choice, as Bach uses the strings in a related way in his Saint Matthew Passion to form a sonic “nimbus” around Christ’s recitatives). The principle of simultaneous contrast applied here serves the same purpose of telling the story of incarnation as suffering, with a static bass—like earthly gravity—and flying, descending lines of strings. Descending lines seem to “draw” all the voices of the chorus, except the vocal lines are straight and the lines of the strings are broken. Each line contains the rhetorical figure of a cross. Throughout the chorus, these lines remain unchanged. The mention of Mary is also accompanied by the figure of the cross. With the words “et homo factus est,” an ascending movement begins in the voices: God’s descent from heaven has lifted mankind. And with these words, for the first time in the entire chorus, the bass line ceases to be even, static and begins to move, the rhetorical figure of the cross finally penetrates into the basis of the foundations: after all, the incarnation is a shock to all natural foundations.

The next chorus, the “Crucifixus,” continues this theme in its content and rhetorical composition. Its form is a variation on a constant bass. Of course, here too we meet the already familiar figures of the cross and the sigh. It is also important how this chorus ends (in the words “passus et sepultus est”), as the voices descend into a low tessitura and the instruments are completely removed from the score. If the “Et incarnatus est” ends with the incarnation, the “Crucifixus” ends with the burial. At a short distance, the ear easily “rhymes” these events through the similarity of compositional techniques Bach uses, serving a common goal: the incarnation and the cross are similar in that they both carry dying in themselves. It is only after this, in the chorus “Et resurrexit,” that the chorus explodes with real jubilation: Resurrection is a life that will never end.

Let me conclude this article with an example from modern times of the combined theme of nativity and suffering: Claude Debussy’s song “Noël des enfants qui n’ont plus de maison” (1915). Debussy wrote this late composition during the First World War (he died in 1919). The text is sung on behalf of children who have lost everything: shelter, loved ones, schools, churches. . . . This is a prayer for the Christmas mercy of Christ the Pauper to all suffering children—French children, Belgian children, Serbian children, Polish children. . . . Children ask the infant Christ for Christmas toys, but they are even more in need of daily bread; their wooden clogs are worn out, but the children of France need a victory even more. Stylistically, the melody would be similar to that of an ordinary carol. Yet the fast pace and pulsating texture on the piano, like the beating of small hearts, and of course the text itself, combined with the intonations of supplication, all produce an amazing effect: Christmas is irrevocable, and here He is: the Christ child suffering along with the children of wartime, in burning schools, churches, and deaths of loved ones. This is Debussy’s deepest vision, and it is not only a protest against the war, but also an assertion that Christ can be seen in a homeless child. Of course, this topic is not new in itself—we can recall both Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Match Girl” and Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “The Beggar Boy at Christ’s Christmas Tree.” But here the topic of private fate grows to the scale of the most important universal question that arose in the terrible twentieth century: where is God?—and the answer to it is given, in childlike simplicity. A visual analogy for this noël would be the famous embroidered icon by Mother Maria (Skobtsova) in which the Mother of God embraces the cross with the Christ child crucified on it.

Maria Batova is a classical musician, music historian, and poet. She is one of Russia’s best-known performers of early music, the founder of the early music ensemble “Musica Humana,” an educator in early music performance at the Moscow Conservatory, and one of Moscow’s preeminent church choir directors. Her poetry has been published in various journals, including Le Messager orthodoxe, and her essays in music history are widely published in professional and general knowledge publications.