(SSAATTBB choir)
SKU:
HL.48024961
SATB
divisi a cappella.
Composed by Arnesen and
Kim André. Boosey &
Hawkes Sacred Choral.
Octavo. Boosey & Hawkes
#M060137129. Published by
Boosey & Hawkes
(HL.48024961).
UPC:
840126950366.
Compo
ser's note: My approach
to arranging this carol,
as well as the other
carols in Nordic
Christmas, was to look at
the text (originally in
Danish by Nikolai
Grundtvig, 1783-1872) and
its background to see if
there are new meanings
hidden in the material.
Perhaps there are
circumstances around its
creation or messages the
original authors were
trying to say that
somehow get lost in the
way they are interpreted
today. Lovely is the dark
blue sky is usually
performed as a lustrous
up-tempo carol, but
thinking of Grundtvig's
story and life, writing
this text between
episodes of severe mental
illness, and his vision
of a child looking at the
dark blue sky at night, I
made the atmosphere of
this arrangement more
dreamy, still and full of
wonder. I still wanted to
keep it childlike, with
the choir singing
tenderly and the soprano
solo is ideally sung by a
child. The melody was
written 'by an old man
who had never before
composed any music', as
stated in the 1853
hymnbook in which this
melody first appeared. It
is the only known
composition of its
writer, the
Norwegian-Danish Jacob
Gerhard Meidell
(1778-1857), who was a
captain in the Danish
Army and later a customs
inspector in Copenhagen.
The text was written by
one of the great Danish
hymn writers, N F S
Grundtvig in 1810. It was
written between a manic
and a depressive episode.
During a time of being
well, he wanted to write
about Christmas through
the eyes of a child. The
message is simple, as a
children's song with
storybook elements.
Dark Blue
