Today it is played more than several of Alf Prøysen’s Christmas carols. But for many years Trygve Hoff’s Christmas classic was “forgotten” before it was rediscovered. What happened to the Christmas hymn that today puts the whole country in the Christmas mood? The Advent series where the hymn was born The story of the Northern Norwegian Christmas hymn begins in 1985. news is working on a new Advent series which will be broadcast once a week on news until Christmas that year. Trygve Hoff is set to write lyrics and music, and the TV recordings are made at Saltdal bygdetun – Trygve Hoff’s home. The TV series “The light in the dark” takes us back to a time that was. The time when people lived with hua in hand and had such strong faith. A time when poverty and faith in God characterized the lives of low-income people. Trygve Hoff loved Christmas, and read the Christmas Gospel to his children on Christmas Eve. Photo: News player Trygve Hoff had grown up with these stories about how people before his time struggled for existence, but who made their way through life with small steps. The lyrics tell us about what once was. In the series’ last episode, it’s finally Christmas on the yard, and people who didn’t have much to worry about on a daily basis could enjoy a few days of good food and joys that overshadowed everyday life. In the TV slot, Trygve Hoff concludes: So it’s Christmas weekend in the land of darkness. Small lights out of small windows tell that there is life under the hill and along the fjord. Here people have lived and fought in ancient times, and here they will still live. Then we can wish each other a peaceful and merry Christmas with a good little song in our hearts. Illustrations made by Karl Erik Harr set the Christmas mood with a hymn in which the text is a prayer of thanks. The magic is created in the basement at Marienlyst The music for “Lyset i mørketida” was not released. It was not the idea either, but that it should be used in the TV series. Trygve Hoff brought three musicians with him to Oslo. Eldest son Ståle Hoff on organ, Terje Blichfeldt on guitar and Konrad Kaspersen on bass. The popular singer Trygve Hoff was very happy at Christmas, and wrote a Northern Norwegian Christmas carol for the children’s TV series Lyset i Mørketida in 1985. Photo: NTB archive, Scanpix The quartet knew each other very well. They had toured together for many years and had made a number of studio recordings. There were professional musicians who knew their place in the band. On this autumn day in 1985, they are gathered in studio 6 where the music that will characterize the TV series is recorded. Sound technician Arne Johnsen sits behind the mixing desk and will do the music recordings. Northern Norwegian Christmas carol is performed with Ståle on the hammond organ in the studio and vocals by Trygve Hoff. As the verses go, Terje and Konrad enter and sing together with Trygve. A simple job, recalls Arne Johnsen. – These were seasoned musicians who knew what to do. The Northern Norwegian Christmas carol was recorded and played on the first attempt, says the retired sound technician. 2 minutes and 40 seconds of magic There were few witnesses to the recording in studio 6. In addition to the sound engineer and the band, the producer for the TV series Inger Bjørnstad and production manager Tove Lønn-Arnesen were also present. The text of the Northern Norwegian Christmas carol. Blessed are you today over the fjord. Bless you light over land. Bless the eternal words of hope and an outstretched hand. Protect this little one you gave us the day you floated us here. So we know you will never let us perish in poverty and toil. We lived with hua in hand but had such a strong faith. And one thing we certainly have true: We are hard-headed, like you. Now we have the hardest ria, we struggle to push ourselves towards the light and the Advent season, which is far south te Bethlehem. God’s peace over the mountain and the hill. Let it grow where we build and live. God’s peace over the animal in the stall and a frozen and barren earth. You see us in the land of darkness, you sign with eternal words. Husan and the mountain and the water and the people who live here in the north. Author: Trygve Hoff Some organ accordions open before Trygve Hoff’s deep voice starts to sing, and three news employees sit in the control room and witness the first notes in history of a Northern Norwegian Christmas hymn. – It was powerful to sit there and hear him sing. It went straight to the heart, both the lyrics and the melody. It sat and still sits there, and it filled me all over, says Tove Lønn-Arnesen 37 years later. Lønn Arnesen together with his wife Tove Lønn Arnesen. Photo: Lise Åserud / NTB After 2 minutes and 50 seconds there is the last organ chorus and the recording is complete. Another ordinary job Konrad Kaspersen is the last surviving musician who took part in the recording. He remembers this as a fairly ordinary job. That’s what they did. Recorded music or stood on a stage. – Trygve came up with a song, and we shaped it there and then. There was nothing special about it, says Kaspersen today. Blåtimen in Bodø. Photo: Knut Valberg Neither the bassist nor any of the others could have imagined that many years later this would become the “national Christmas song” The hymn that goes to sleep Two years after the recording, Trygve Hoff dies suddenly and unexpectedly aged just 49. In the years since, memorial concerts have been organized in Tromsø, Bodø, Rognan and on news TV. But with Trygve Hoff’s passing, much of his music is also silenced. Dagfinn Sivertsen was at the time leader of the Bodø Octet and remembers that Trygve Hoff’s songs were not played as often. With Trygve Hoff’s passing, the North Norwegian Christmas carol remains unpublished. It can only be found on a reel in news’s archives. Northern Norwegian Christmas carol is published for the first time, but not with Trygve Hoff Dagfinn Sivertsen and the Bodø Oktetten worked in the first half of the 1990s on a disc release with music made by Trygve Hoff. Sivertsen remembered back to the TV series that had been broadcast ten years earlier. Møysalen mountain in Vesterålen. Photo: Bjørn E. Halvorsen – I remembered the Northern Norwegian Christmas carol from “Lyset i mørketida”, and when we started picking songs for Nocturne in the northern album, that song was the first choice. Composer Bjørn Andor Drage was commissioned to write an arrangement for the very first recording of a Northern Norwegian Christmas carol. The record is distributed in autumn 1995 and picked up by news and other radio stations. The Northern Norwegian Christmas carol is being reborn and with a power that no one could imagine. More played than Musevisa Today, the North Norwegian Christmas carol is heard at concerts, Christmas parties and countless other versions on the radio. Artists and choirs. Adults and children. In the north and in the south, the North Norwegian Christmas carol is in the time before Christmas. According to Odd Stenberg in Norsk noteservice, which manages the rights to the hymn on behalf of the family, it is played more than Alf Prøysen’s Musevisa in the run-up to Christmas. It is difficult to find the number of versions of it. But if you include choirs, bands and bands, there can be several hundred. In news’s archives alone, there are around 70 unique recordings of it. Artists such as Christel Alsos, Hanne Krogh and Halvdan Sivertsen are among the many well-known artists who have published their versions of Northern Norwegian Christmas carols. The release of Trygve Hoff’s own version came out in 2014, almost 30 years after the recording in studio 6 at Marienlyst. – Who would have thought that it would happen, where we were in the studio recording the last song, that the jewel would be packed up and found again many years later, says Konrad Kaspersen almost 40 years after the North Norwegian Christmas carol was born.
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The Northern Norwegian Christmas carol was missing for many years before it was rediscovered – news Nordland
