Kyrie de Noel

A transcription from the organ/choir score by Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704) – “Messe De Minuit Pour Noël.” This is only the “Kyrie” movement of Charpentier’s sacred Mass, which was a parody on 11, then popular, French folk dance and drinking songs. The debate continues today, whether mixing sacred and secular music, and “enticing” people to “let their hair down,” is proper. Charpentier's contemporaries later acknowledged that “the pews were full.”