SKU: HL.49017921

ISBN 9790220131509. UPC: 884088567590. 8.25x11.75x0.062 inches. English.

Composed for the Alwinton and Holystone Church Choir near the composer's home in Northumberland, John Casken sets Christina Rossetti's In the bleak mid-winter - a poem popularised by Gustav Holts' setting of the same name for SATB choir and organ. A traditional carol based on the nativity it paints a vivid picture of the chill of winter and is ideal for choirs wishing to move away from the well-known whilst retaining an element of tradition. Constantly flowing organ lines create a sense of unease but this is uplifting music with subtle crescendos and powerful homophonic writing for the voices.

SKU: FG.55011-455-5

ISBN 9790550114555.

This cycle of carols, to the poetry of Christina Rossetti, was assembled piecemeal over a number of years, gradually acquiring a larger dramatic and harmonic arch shape as new settings were added. I was particularly attracted to Rossetti's conflation of the dark, fallow winter landscape with that of the soul waiting for salvation. The cycle traces the long nights of watchfulness before Christmas, with the great event constantly deferred, only glimpsed periodically in different visions before the music turns inward again to contemplation. The opening carol embodies this spirit, with passages of diffuse, roving harmony interspersed with meditative, lyrical pedals, calling out the night watch and dreaming of a far-off summer of the spirit. Earth Grown Old is a kind of double carol, setting two complete poems, their lines at first presented separately as a still, expectant chorale and a jubilant dance, then progressively interwoven toward a fervent climax before once again receding into quiet. In the bleak mid-winter, which sets a highly compressed version of Rossetti's original poem, presents an enfeebled landscape frozen in time, in dire need of deliverance. A gentle melody weaves its way through static drones, broken by an angels' chorus announcing the joy to come. Love Came Down at Christmas ends the waiting, with its gently falling, overlapping lines building to a final revelation, the mystery of Christmas at last made real.