Con giubilante cor

Let’s stay around the same time period as yesterday’s piece, but move to the Mediterranean area for our Christmas music today.

Pietro Yon wrote “Gesu Bambino” in 1917. Imagine the drive to pull yourself figuratively out of the fourth year of a war that was strangling Italy (and France, and Germany, and Russia, and Britain…) to write a carol about angels and shepherds rejoicing over the birth of the Savior.

I like the way the melody ripples in a swirling pattern, like water bubbling down a hillside. As per usual, it’s about the baby Jesus (well—that is the title, after all), to whom it refers as “The Christmas Rose”, which is kind of pretty.

I love the refrain:

Osanna, osanna cantaro

Con giubilante cor

I tuoi pastori ed angeli

O re di luce e amor

Your shepherds and angels sang hosanna, hosanna with jubilant heart, O king of light and love.

And here are two of my favorite sopranos singing it at Carnegie Hall: