Product Description:
PDF score of In the Bleak Midwinter.
Please note: 10 copy minimum. Please purchase one copy per member of your choir.
Please note: 10 copy minimum. Please purchase one copy per member of your choir.
Program Note:
Written for Myriad Ensemble, Director Elise Naccarato
This piece is a recomposition of the well-known carol "In the Bleak Midwinter" for Canadian Women’s Choir, Myriad Ensemble, placing Christina Rossetti's beautifully evocative text into an entirely new medium. Though most of the work is an extreme departure from the original carol melody, elements of this historically renowned setting appear throughout the work, finally appearing fully realized during the final verse with traditional three part harmonies.
This piece is a recomposition of the well-known carol "In the Bleak Midwinter" for Canadian Women’s Choir, Myriad Ensemble, placing Christina Rossetti's beautifully evocative text into an entirely new medium. Though most of the work is an extreme departure from the original carol melody, elements of this historically renowned setting appear throughout the work, finally appearing fully realized during the final verse with traditional three part harmonies.
Instrumentation:
SSA unaccompanied choir
Recording:
Score:
Text:
In the Bleak Midwinter
In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.
Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.
[Enough for Him, whom cherubim, worship night and day,
Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels fall before,
The ox and ass and camel which adore.]
Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
But His mother only, in her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the beloved with a kiss.
What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.
- Christina Rossetti (1872)
In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.
Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.
[Enough for Him, whom cherubim, worship night and day,
Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels fall before,
The ox and ass and camel which adore.]
Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
But His mother only, in her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the beloved with a kiss.
What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.
- Christina Rossetti (1872)