Personet Hodie - Bertaux

Title: Personet Hodie
Composer/Lyricist: Betty Bertaux
Publisher: Boosey & Hawkes (distributed by Hal Leonard)
Catalogue #: M-051-47906-7
JW Pepper Cat. #: 10020867
Price: $1.70
Duration: 3:00
Voicing: 2-part
Obligatto: Handbells, Flute, Tambourine, Tenor Drum, Triangle (parts available)
Key: e dorian
Tessitura: Pt. 1: d-e', Pt. 2: b-e'
Piano Difficulty: N/A
Recording Available: http://www.halleonard.com/common/closerLook/48019259/PersonetHodie.mp3

Notes: This is a fantastic 2-part arrangement of a very old Christmas carol. It was written for an advanced elementary school choir, so it should be perfectly suited for middle school choirs as a study piece and high schoolers and church/community choirs for a quick learning but impressive concert selection. Even though it's notated for Treble 1 & 2, they could easily be altered for Men & Women, or Soprano/Tenor & Alto/Bass.

There's no real rhythmic difficulty to speak of - keeping the expression crisp without going too fast or speeding up will be the potential problems, especially if you use students for the percussion parts. The vocal parts are also uncomplicated, which is wonderful if you want to use this as a reading experience in a mode for your choir. The most difficulty comes in the 4th stanza, as the parts are not in canon as in stanza 2, or in unison with canon halfway through as in stanza 3. Fortunately, the second half of the 4th stanza is nearly identical to that of the 3rd stanza. An extended ending to the 4th stanza splits the choir into 3 parts very briefly.

I highly recommend getting a hand bell choir to play with your choir, or two skilled mallet percussionists to imitate the hand bells on an orchestral metallophone. The only significant challenge of the piece is the language - this is in Latin with no poetic English translation. A fairly faithful prose translation is provided in the copious notes that fill 4 pages of the 16 page octavo. since the song was originally a German carol, I'd recommend using German-Latin pronunciation for the utmost authenticity - the more percussive sounds of the alternate pronunciation fits so nicely witht he dance-like character of the melody. it might also make another nice teaching opporuntity for your choir.