Bring A Torch, Jeanette Isabella: A Song History

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“Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella” is a Nativity carol from Provence in the south of France. Its French words, “Un flambeau, Jeannette, Isabelle,” are by the poet Émile Blémont and first appeared in 1901 in Noëls français, a carol collection by the musicologist Julien Tiersot.[1][2] Blémont based his text on an older Provençal carol, “Viénès leou vieira la Pieoucelle,” which was printed in an 1836 publication of Nicolas Saboly’s Recueil de noëls provençaux.[1][3] The carol is often credited to Saboly (1614–1675) himself, but the editors of The New Oxford Book of Carols, as reported by Hymns and Carols of Christmas, consider that attribution “probably incorrect.”[1] Hymnary.org lists the original simply as a traditional French carol.[4]

Dark Rembrandt etching of shepherds gathered by lantern light around the Holy Family in a stable at night

Rembrandt (Rembrandt van Rijn), Adoration of the Shepherds: A Night Piece, etching, ca. 1657. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0).

The melody may have begun life outside the church. Program notes from the Los Angeles Philharmonic and All Classical Radio trace it to an air à boire, or drinking song, that Marc-Antoine Charpentier wrote for Molière’s comedy Le Médecin malgré lui, and both date it to 1666.[2][3] A bulletin of the Centre de musique baroque de Versailles, however, suggests that Charpentier’s air for that play may have been written for a revival on 28 June 1672.[5] None of the scholarly sources consulted here discusses the link between Charpentier’s air and the carol tune, so that connection should be treated with some caution.

The English words usually sung were written by the British organist and composer Edward Cuthbert Nunn (1868–1914).[1][4][6] Hymnary.org records the carol in some eighteen hymnals, and choral arrangements include versions by Alice Parker and Robert Shaw and by John Rutter.[2][4][6]

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Sources

  1. Hymns and Carols of Christmas: "Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella".
  2. LA Phil: "Bring a Torch, Jeanette Isabella".
  3. All Classical Radio: "The Stories of Twelve Carols: 2020 Edition".
  4. Hymnary.org: "Bring a Torch, Jeannette, Isabella".
  5. Centre de musique baroque de Versailles: Bulletin no. 2 (2009), Judith Le Blanc, "Parodies d’opéras et coexistence des musiques de Lully et Charpentier sur la scène de la Comédie-Française".
  6. Oxford University Press: "Un flambeau, Jeannette, Isabelle / Bring a torch, Jeannette, Isabella" (John Rutter).