I FIRST encountered our last carol, Three Kings from Persian Lands Afar, when it was sung by the senior choir at my girls’ grammar school in about 1960, and I thought it was the most unbelievably beautiful thing I had ever heard. I still do.
I am not sure if it technically counts as a carol because it has two simultaneous melodies so can it really only be sung by a choir rather than a church congregation. But I am not going to let that get in the way.
Like earlier carols in this series, We Three Kings of Orient Are and I saw Three Ships, Three Kings from Persian Lands Afar describes the visit of the Magi to the infant Jesus in Bethlehem. As we hear it today, it is the work of four men spanning 400 years. The background chorale Wie Schön Leuchtet der Morgenstern (How Brightly Shines the Morning Star) was written in 1597 by Philipp Nicolai, a German Lutheran pastor, poet and composer, apparently as a response to an outbreak of plague, or the Black Death, though research suggests the tune was at least 60 years old by then. The words are based on Psalm 45, a mystical wedding song. Nicolai is supposed to be the last example of the Meistersinger tradition, in which words and music are written by the same person.
In 1856 the German composer and writer Peter Cornelius wrote the hymn Die Könige (The Kings) for a vocal soloist set against a piano background of Wie Schön Leuchtet der Morgenstern. Cornelius mistakenly thought the chorale referred to the Star of Bethlehem, when it is an Advent hymn in which the Morning Star is an allegory for the arrival of Jesus. He rewrote it in 1870 for soloist and chorus.
The German words were translated into English in 1928 by the Rev Herbert Newell Bate (1871-1941). He was ordained in 1896, and was Dean of York from 1932 until his death nine years later.
At some stage after that, Worcester Cathedral’s organist Sir Ivor Atkins came across Cornelius’s Die Könige. (I say ‘at some stage’ because every website I have found says this happened in 1957, but Atkins died in 1953.)
Atkins, a friend and musical associate of Edward Elgar, is noted for his editing of the work known as Allegri’s Miserere, which is a composite of various early works. The famous ethereal top C is apparently an error in an earlier edition which Atkins copied into his version. (For an interesting account of the evolution of the piece, see here.)
In his masterly arrangement, Atkins gave Cornelius’s words and melody to a baritone soloist, while the Nicolai chorale How Brightly Shines the Morning Star is sung as a background by a four-part choir.
It is given every few years by the choir of King’s College, Cambridge, either at the service of Nine Lessons and Carols which is broadcast live on radio on Christmas Eve afternoon, or Carols from King’s which is recorded earlier in December and goes out on TV, also on Christmas Eve. (I don’t know if it will be in today’s broadcasts.) I have chosen the performance from 2011.
The baritone soloist is Dan D’Souza, then a choral scholar, who has gone on to have a successful career as a professional singer. And here is a version by a girls’ choir, which must be like the first time I heard it. It may be a little wobbly in places but it still fills my heart with joy.