December 24: "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

As far as I'm concerned, we're there-- Christmas is here. If you're like me--or very unlike me but Italian--Christmas Eve is Christmas for you. The entire previous month has been leading up to these two days, and this is the last day of anticipation. Hell, without the anticipation Christmas just wouldn't feel like Christmas! Christmas Eve is where the fun peaks, because we all know that by midnight tomorrow it'll all be over (which is why I'm on board with the Appalachian idea of celebrating Christmas by partying all the way to Epiphany). As my mom likes to say yearly, "All this work for one shittin' day!" So today is to be savored and, even in the most secular celebrations, revered. Which is why I labored long and hard over which song I was going to do today. For most people, either Silent Night or O Holy Night is the anthem of Christmas Eve, but neither fits the bill for my purposes; I think if you turn on your local Christmas radio station today you'll hear interpretations of both aplenty. They're both universally known for good reason, though: they're remarkably beautiful songs. Yet for all their splendor I don't think either is as evocative as "In the Bleak Midwinter." 

Christina Rossetti, by her brother

The history of this carol is rather straightforward, especially compared to many of my entries, but not lacking in substance. That up there is the likeness of Christina Rossetti, considered by many to be Victorian England's greatest female poet. If you're into poetry (which, admittedly, I'm not) I'm sure you've read her stuff; if you haven't, there's no shortage of stuff to read, as I'm finding while writing this. Even a brief biography of her time on earth reads like a Shakespearean tragedy. She was born in London in 1830 to a banished Italian expatriate. Though her early childhood was relatively happy--as happy as a mid-19th century English childhood might be-- her family began to suffer as she progressed into her teens, with her father falling terminally ill and the family falling on financially hard times as a result. She suffered a nervous breakdown at 14, and in the wake of it became devoutly involved in the Anglo-Catholicism movement, which I've written on before. The combination of her deep newfound faith and her bouts of depression resulted in three broken engagements, and thereafter a mental state of almost perpetual melancholy. She channeled that melancholy into her writing, and established a name for herself well before her death in 1894, though most of her skill as a poet was recognized posthumously. In fact, "In the Bleak Midwinter" was not published until 1904, as part of a collection of her poetry called... well, Poetical Works. 

"I'll take tautologies for 4 million, Alex."

Even tune-less the poem is really melancholy; the third and defining word of the lyrics is bleak. And it tends to emphasize how it's not just Jesus who is born poor, it's also the vast majority of his followers, even into the modern era. The last verse reads:

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

So we're all poor and it's really cold outside: that's the gist of Rossetti's poem. We know she wrote it, as the book puts it, sometime before 1872, so well into her poetic career. It shows in the complex meter of the poem, which must have been hard to match musically. But matched it was, by not one, but two composers, and almost simultaneously, at that. The musical arrangement that most of us are familiar with (provided you've heard this song before) is a tune called "Cranham" written by the famous composer Gustav Holst specifically for the poem in 1906, a mere two years after its publishing date. The King's College Choir version at the top utilizes that tune. Holst's melody is fittingly melancholy, but aside from a handful of minor chords sprinkled in, it's in a major key. I believe "bittersweet" is the word that sappy people use for this. Holst's setting works well for a full, musically untrained singing the hymn, as it makes the complex meter easier to follow.

Three years later, in 1909, a music student at the Royal College of Music named Harold Darke composed his own musical setting for the poem. Quoting directly from Wikipedia, it is "more advanced and each verse is treated slightly differently, with solos for soprano and tenor (or a group of sopranos and tenors) and a delicate organ accompaniment." Darke officially published his version in 1911, and went on to be the choral director at King's College during the World War II years. Fittingly--and ironically, for our purposes--his is the version usually sung during the annual Nine Lessons and Carols performed by the choir. Thing is, it really only works when sung by a musically literate and well-rehearsed choir. Have a listen for yourself:

Though a much more obscure version, a 2008 poll of choirmasters worldwide named Darke's version the best Christmas carol ever written. And that may be true if you're a choirmaster, but for the rest of us I think the Holst version is more iconic. As a music theory plebeian I like the Holst melody much more. For me it helps draw out a lot of the imagery that I think Rossetti was going for when she wrote her poem. 

One last note, for posterity's sake: we all know that Jesus wasn't born in the wintertime, right? Historians, theologians, and smug people everywhere tend to agree that Jesus was much more likely born in the springtime. That would explain the shepherds keeping watch over their flocks of sheep in the pastures, and there's also nothing in the bible that even hints that it might have been wintertime when Jesus was born. Christmas was placed in sync with pagan winter festivals like Saturnalia in the 4th century. So there was no frosty wind making moan, earth standing hard as iron, or water like a stone when Jesus came into the world. But don't let that rob you of your holiday cheer. What's important is that this might be the case wherever you're spending this Christmas Eve, and there's something about Holst's version that feels like that stillness that only a cold winter night can feel like. For me, "In the Bleak Midwinter" is not only one of my favorite Christmas songs, but perfectly suited to Christmas Eve.