Hodie Christus natus est – Plainsong, Sweelinck, & Poulenc

For Christmas Day, settings of the text ‘Hodie Christus natus est’ (Today Christ is born).

First, the plainsong, which you may know from the setting by Britten in his Ceremony of Carols as the Processional and Recessional.

Then, as set in 1619 by Dutch Renaissance composer Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck for choir, and finally by Francis Poulenc in 1952.