9th December, 2022
Six Noëls pour la Harpe ~ op 32 no 3
Marcel Tournier
The third of the Six Noels was revisited by Tournier in 1942 to become Lettre d’Enfant à Noël. The church bell connection is, in fact, made in the words.
The words of this sweet, yet poignant song give a deeper significance to the solo version and are worth giving here. Paris was, of course, under Nazi German occupation at the time the song appeared. Incidentally, it reveals to me that I was not alone as a child, in believing that Father Christmas and God were one and the same:
Je vous écris petit Noël
Le jour où la neige est sur les toits
Et que j’entends sonner la cloche de l’église
Apportez-moi beaucoup de poupées
Avec un grand berceau mon petit Noël
Revenez descendez dans ma cheminée
Où j’ai mis mes beaux sabots du dimanche
Que vous remplirez de belles choses toutes roses
Remportez les gros canons
Qui blessent les maisons
Et font tant de bruit dans la nuit
Que j’entremble Petit Noël
Me voici a genoux et vous fais ma prière
A Noël qui demeure au ciel.
This translates roughly as:
I am writing to you Father Christmas
The day when the snow is on the roofs
And I can hear the church clock chime
Please bring me lots of dollies
With a big cradle Father Christmas
Come back down my chimney
Where I have left my beautiful Sunday boots
For you to fill with all sorts of lovely pink things
Take away the big guns
Which damage the homes and make such a noise in the night
That I tremble Father Christmas
Here I am on my knees and I make my prayer to you
Father Christmas who lives in the sky.
Performed on David Opera Model Concert Harp
Nineteenth-and Twentieth-Century Harpists: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook.
Wenonah Milton Govea.(Bio-Crit-ical Sourcebooks on Musical Performance.)
Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1995.