Otto Ketting: A child is born/Thou art welcome

In 1953 Dutch composer Otto Ketting (then only 18 years old) scored a new setting of three traditional Dutch Christmas carols. Two of these were performed on December 25, 2003, at the annual Christmas Concert of the Protestant Broadcasting Association, aired from the catholic (yes, this is Holland folks...) St. John's Cathedral of Den Bosch.
Performers were the Escolania de Montserrat and Musica Ducis conducted by Joaquim Piqué i Calvo.
Part of the concert's tradition is the inclusion of Dutch season songs, this time being 'Er is een kindeke geboren op aard' ('A child is born') and 'Nu sijt wellecome' ('Thou art welcome').

The texts of the songs were translated by me; the translations follow the meter of the music. The '^'-sign given in the text represents every first beat.

The full texts can be found at the bottom of this info.

Pay attention to some close-ups of the men-singers, you can see them breathe in the cold church.


TEXTS

Song 1
'A child is born'

A child is born on the earth on this day (bis)
Into the world He came for all of us (bis)

He came to earth with no home where to stay (bis)
He came to earth and brought with Him His cross




Song 2
'Thou art welcome'

Thou art welcome, Jesu, Lord, our guiding star
Thou comest from above and from so far
Down from heaven welcome beest thou to ever fore
Then amongst all earthborn wert thou seen never more

Ky-ri-e-leis!


Shepherds in the fields not yet knew the new song
That Jesus had been born, they waited long
"Goeth into all the streets, ye'll find the child born-new
In the town of Bethlem, that's where it has come true."

Ky-ri-e-leis!

Category:

Music

Tags:

• kerstliederen
• christmas
• carols
• otto
• ketting
• nu
• syt
• sijt
• wellecome
• wellekome
• kindeke
• geboren
• aard
• Escolania
• Montserrat
• Musica
• Ducis

[tonbraas]

Beautiful indeed ! Hitherto unknown to me.

[ILikeChickens2690]

Wow, that was beautiful- thank you for sharing!