Christmas Hath Darkness (2013)

For double choir (SATBSATB)

An anthem suitable for choirs to perform at Christmas - needs reasonably confident singers.

Download a preview score here. If you perform it please let me know.

Setting of poem by Christina Rossetti
Written in November 2013 for the Baroque Collective Singers conducted by John Hancorn
First performed 15 December 2013 St John's Sub Castro

Christmas Eve
Source: The Poetical Works of Christina Georgina Rossetti, with a Memoir and Notes by William Michael Rossetti (1904)

CHRISTMAS hath darkness

Brighter than the blazing noon,

Christmas hath a chillness

Warmer than the heat of June,

Christmas hath a beauty

Lovelier than the world can show:

For Christmas bringeth Jesus,

Brought for us so low.

Earth, strike up your music,

Birds that sing and bells that ring;

Heaven hath answering music

For all Angels soon to sing:

Earth, put on your whitest
Bridal robe of spotless snow:

For Christmas bringeth Jesus,

Brought for us so low.

Before 1886