Alleluia, Hodie Alleluia

Here is an energetic Christmas selection for your older singers. We've set this in a 3-part voicing with part 3 being accessible to your lower, changing, and changed voices. It can also be performed as a unison piece using part 1 only. We've included a unison version of the demo on our web site, along with rehearsal tracks for each of the three parts. (See details on page 78.)

The text is all Latin and translates:

Alleluia, Today Alleluia!
Alleluia! Christ is Born.
Alleluia, Today Alleluia!
Today! Glory to the Lord.
Glory. Glory to God in the highest.
Glory. Glory. And on earth, peace.

You'll want to be sure to observe the dynamics to bring out the most excitement in the song. The fourth time at measure 5, the instrumentation drops out except snares and acoustic guitar. You can back off half a notch dynamically, then give it all you've got building into measure 13. The orchestra will cue that entrance.

Ideally, this would have a Vienna Boys' Choir sound, but they were not available for our recording. So use tall vowels and head voice – and just think of Vienna.