It was an auditory experience characteristic of a Charles Dickens novel set in London on Christmas morning. In actuality, it was the opening selection of this year's Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert presented in two performances Dec. 12-13 in the Conference Center.
With dancers clad in pale yellow with striking maroon trim providing pageantry, the choir and Orchestra at Temple Square presented musical director Mack Wilberg's arrangement, a processional on "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen."
But it was the Bells on Temple Square, augmented by bell choirs from local high schools and a community group that gave homage to the theme "Ring Christmas Bells," with a pandemonium evoking the experience of a reformed Ebenezer Scrooge who, on Christmas, encountered "the lustiest peals he had ever heard. Clash, clang, hammer; ding, dong, bell. Bell, dong, ding; hammer, clang, clash. Oh, glorious, glorious."
Consistent with the theme, veteran stage and screen actor Edward Herrmann performed an emotionally moving narration set to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day," giving the story of how the poet surmounted devastating personal tragedy to write the text for that Civil War era Christmas song.
But perhaps for many in the audience, the high point was the performance by guest artist Brian Stokes Mitchell of Broadway composer Maury Yeston's song "New Words." Mr. Mitchell performed the song in Salt Lake City in September, when he joined with the Tabernacle Choir and Utah Symphony for the Tanner Gift of Music Concert. On that occasion as well as this, he told of the birth of his son, who had been expected to arrive on or near Christmas one year, but who made his appearance a couple of weeks early and who started talking in sentences before he was 1.
Mr. Mitchell remembered the Yeston composition. "When I got hold of this song," he said, "I could not believe it when I read the lyrics. I thought, 'How could you know the words that would be coming out of my mouth and the feeling that would be coming from my heart?' "
The words are written from the standpoint of a father teaching his baby son the words for moon and stars, and then, looking into his eyes, teaching him the word love.
Earlier in the program, during a performance of the English carol "The Friendly Beasts," Mr. Mitchell delighted the audience with his voice characterizations of the donkey, cow, sheep and dove that might have been present in the stable at Christ's birth.
"Doesn't that song just make you want to go home and hug your dog?" he said jokingly after the conclusion.
Solos by each of the three Salt Lake Tabernacle organists, including a performance of "Go Tell It on the Mountain" by Richard Elliott, in which he played the entire first verse on the pedals while snapping his fingers, displayed their virtuosity as well as the magnificence of the Conference Center instrument.
The customary reading of the Christmas story from Luke 2, this year by Mr. Herrmann, and the traditional finale "Angels from the Realms of Glory" capped this annual yuletide offering to the public from the choir and its musical companions.
A combined total audience of some 80,000 viewed the performances, including a dress rehearsal on Dec. 11 and a miniconcert following the Sunday morning broadcast of "Music and the Spoken Word."
