Christmas Music in Italy

Italian bagpipers? Really?

We never know when we will discover a common chord with others—especially of a shared musical cultural tradition. Growing up in Bari and Napoli in la bella Italia, one of my favorite Christmas songs was Tu Scendi Dalle Stelle”—“You descended from the stars.” It is heartwarming to share this with friends here in the US, who grew up singing the same song for Christmas programs in churches and in schools.

My first connection with this lovely, lilting song (and the “Tu” as you know, translates to the familiar second person, connoting a warm and special relationship with the baby Jesus, as opposed to using “Lei,” the more formal second person), was in our family’s presepio, the manger scene. A figurine of a zampognaro, a shepherd, was part of the display, complete with a lamb. It didn’t seem odd to me that a shepherd was one of the figurines. During the Christmas season, many shepherds from the mountains used to flock down to Rome and Napoli and Bari and play “Tu scendi dalle stelle” over and over again on many street corners, delighting passers-by. Click here for real zampognari playing in Bari.

Some say this is the first Christmas song written in dialect and in Italian by a Neapolitan priest, Saint Alphonsus Liguori in the town of Nola. Lore has it that it was inspired by the Neapolitan folksong “Quanno nascette Ninno a Bettlemme/Era nott’e pareva miezo journo” (When the baby was born in Bethlehem/it was nighttime but seemed noontime”.)

We can’t imagine an Italian Christmas without the sound of bagpipes. Everywhere from cities to hillside villages, the Zampognari continue the tradition of festive bagpipe playing for Christmas. History says the pipers were shepherds who would come down from their mountain homes at Christmas time to perform for the townsfolk to earn a little extra income.

What they have really accomplished is to create a lovely tradition with a meaningful Christmas song that schoolchildren sing in almost every Italian and Italian-American community, school, and church, and remember for all their lives.

Click here for the song and translation.

Tu Scendi Dalle Stelle: lyrics in Italian, followed by English:

1. Tu scendi dalle stelle,
O Re del Cielo,
e vieni in una grotta,
al freddo al gelo.

O Bambino mio Divino
Io ti vedo qui a tremar,
O Dio Beato
Ahi, quanto ti costò
l’avermi amato!

2. A te, che sei del mondo
il Creatore,
mancano panni e fuoco;
O mio Signore!

Caro eletto Pargoletto,
Quanto questa povertà
più mi innamora!
Giacché ti fece amor
povero ancora!

English

1. From starry skies descending,
Thou comest, glorious King,
A manger low Thy bed,
In winter’s icy sting;

O my dearest Child most holy,
Shudd’ring, trembling in the cold!
Great God, Thou lovest me!
What suff’ring Thou didst bear,
That I near Thee might be!

2. Thou art the world’s Creator,
God’s own and true Word,
Yet here no robe, no fire
For Thee, Divine Lord.

Dearest, fairest, sweetest Infant,
Dire this state of poverty.
The more I care for Thee,
Since Thou, O Love Divine,
Will’st now so poor to be.

Author of over thirty traditionally-published books for young readers, Margo Sorenson spent the first seven years of her life in Spain and Italy, devouring books and Italian food and still speaks (or tries!) her childhood languages. Her most recent Adult/Young Adult novel, SECRETS IN TRANSLATION (Fitzroy Books, October 2018), takes place in Positano, with heroine Alessandra, whose being able to speak Italian helps  her to feel at home in Italy, once again—and solve a mystery that threatens those she loves—but not at Christmas! For more information on ordering SECRETS IN TRANSLATION and Margo’s other books, such as picture book SPAGHETTI SMILES and AMBROSE AND THE PRINCESS, (do you see an Italian trend, here? 😉)