There is a shine over silent villages

Christmas carols year round

småfugleneDo you belong to those who gladly would sing Christmas carols all year? Here you find me. When I was a choir director for the local choir, I brought forth the music for our Christmas carols from early in the autumn. I heard som grumbling in the bass group …  ‘we know them from before, and people want to listen to the good oldies….’ It belongs to another story how we came to an agreement ….
‘Det lyser i stille grender’ (There is a shine over silent villages’ was written in 1931 by Jakob Sande, the West Norwegian poet. The song came alive in 1948 when the composer Lars Søraas gave it a wonderful melody. I remember my father ‘The village Teacher’ taught us this song i school, and it was the first song to which I found the ‘second melody’…. This song has followed me from my childhood ‘grend’ Stavn in Flå. Far north you find the old beautiful kept old traditional farm ‘Hefta’… underneath the tall spruce clad rocky hillside. 
The song from west and the watercolour painting with its motiv from the east melt together to one of my dearest Christmas cards…. vest og akvarellen frå garden i aust smeltar saman til eitt av mine kjæraste julekort.
With peace
from the mountain
and silent forests
Christmas tones
sound at winter tide……