Origins: In the Bleak Midwinter

Subject: in the bleak midwinter
From: fat B****rd
Date: 03 Mar 01 - 01:44 PM

So I didn't want the chords to Small Town Talk anyway !!A copule of Christmases ago I was in Waterstones (English classy bookshop) in Guildford having a browse when a solo female voice came on the background music singing the above mentioned ITBM. It sounded like one of those long-haired, pretty midle-class girls that England turns out by the dozen (no offence intended, I'm just being descriptive. The guy behind the counter didn't know who it was, can anybody help, please all the best fB

Subject: RE: BS: in the bleak midwinter
From: Greyeyes
Date: 03 Mar 01 - 01:55 PM

Charlotte Church? teenage soprano sensation. She has recorded ITBM, but it was on the album released just before Xmas 2000, so may not be the one you heard.

Subject: RE: BS: in the bleak midwinter
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Mar 01 - 04:57 PM

I've never noticed that long-haired girls sing any different from short-haired girls. That descripion doesn't really narrow down the field too well.

Could have been Charlotte Church. Could have been Maddy Prior, could have been Barbara Dickson. Could have been lots more.

Subject: RE: BS: in the bleak midwinter
From: GUEST,Ickel Dorrit
Date: 03 Mar 01 - 05:42 PM

Its very frustrating when you hear a snippet of music and then spend the next four years trying to track it down usually by humming it in the ear of anyone daft enough to listen. I was in Whitby a couple of years ago, and was browsing around a small gallery, as you do, and this fabulous piece of music was being played. No one had any idea who it was and I pretty much got on everyone's nerves for about a year until I finally found out it was by Mark Knopfler and was the music from Last Exit to Brooklyn-God it was like coming home....

Subject: RE: BS: in the bleak midwinter
From: Grab
Date: 04 Mar 01 - 08:49 AM

God it was like coming home....

Which is of course a completely different MK film theme. Or was that "Going home"? :-)

Grab.

Subject: RE: BS: in the bleak midwinter
From: Linda Kelly
Date: 04 Mar 01 - 11:45 AM

Was that the one from Local Hero?

Subject: RE: BS: in the bleak midwinter
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Mar 01 - 02:58 PM

I think CC is the most likely. She's 14/15 now, and came on to the music scene in a big way a coule of years ago. There's a "tradition " of having a Christmas special record by the latest young star(remember Aled Jones?)She does have a gorgeous voice.

Subject: Lyric. Req.: In The Bleak Midwinter
From: harpgirl
Date: 14 Dec 01 - 12:41 PM

Hey, I see a number of references to this song in the Forum but no words to it. Christina Rosseti, a nineteenth century poem????? Susan, Animaterra...anyone?

Subject: RE: BS: in the bleak midwinter
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 14 Dec 01 - 12:47 PM

Cathy Barton sings it on Folk-Legacy's "'Twas On a Night Like This" (CD-114). Check our web site, click on the image of the CD there on the opening page.

Sandy

Subject: RE: BS: in the bleak midwinter
From: wysiwyg
Date: 14 Dec 01 - 12:53 PM

HG, I just set up a link to it in the autoharp thread! *G* Pick a key and I'll post it.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: in the bleak midwinter
From: harpgirl
Date: 14 Dec 01 - 12:57 PM

...any key will do, Susan. How about whatever you've got?

Thanks Sandy. You're up early!!!

Subject: ADD: In the Bleak Midwinter^^^
From: Joe Offer
Date: 14 Dec 01 - 12:59 PM

If you check at one of the online CD dealers, a song search for bleak midwinter will tell you the song has been recorded by about thirteen dozen women with middle-class English accents. I'm most familiar with the Julie Andrews recording, but even Cyndi Lauper did it. Nice song.
-Joe Offer-

---

Just so we have it and can search for it, here it is. I don't think I'll harvest it for the Digital Tradition.

IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER
(Christina Rossetti)

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 incarnate,
Jesus Christ.

Angels and archangels
may have gathered there
cherubim and seraphim
thronged the air;
but his mother only,
in her maiden bliss,
worshiped 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.

Words: Christina Rossetti, 1872 ^^^

Subject: RE: BS: in the bleak midwinter
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Dec 01 - 01:01 PM

Words and chords in the thread Christmas songs. Music by Holst. Thread 3225#15845. Let me try this.
Christmas Songs

Subject: RE: In the Bleak Midwinter
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Dec 01 - 01:03 PM

It worked. It was posted by Alison.

Subject: RE: In the Bleak Midwinter
From: Joe Offer
Date: 14 Dec 01 - 01:03 PM

Dang! I searched, but I missed the song because there was a hyphen in mid-winter....
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: in the bleak midwinter
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Dec 01 - 01:30 PM

That hyphen is a problem. They were standard in the 19C but for most words were gradually dropped through time.
This song is very popular at Christmas time. People have told me it's old Scots, translated Dutch, etc. The composer of the music, Gustav Holst (English-born in spite of the name) is known for his symphonic works, inc. "The Planets," parts of which show up in films like 2001.

Subject: RE: BS: in the bleak midwinter
From: fat B****rd
Date: 15 Dec 01 - 06:50 AM

Well,well ,well. Just goes to show that you should never underestimate the 'cat. I'll check out the references made. Thankyou, all the best from The fB

Subject: RE: BS: in the bleak midwinter
From: masato sakurai
Date: 16 Dec 01 - 04:57 AM

Though the Holst version is shown in most carol books including The Oxford Book of Carols (1928, no. 187, titled "Mid-Winter") and hymnals (The English Hymnal; Hymns Ancient and Modern), Harold Darke's composition has been recorded on many CDs (9 in front of me). Both scores are in The New Oxford Book of Carols (1992, no. 111), its Shorter edition (no. 63), and 100 Carols for Choirs (Oxford, nos. 39 & 40). There's one more, composed by William Llewellyn, in The Novello Book of Carols, part 1 (1986, no. 29); it's on Worcester Cathedral Choir's Joy to the World CD.

~Masato

Subject: RE: BS: in the bleak midwinter
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Dec 01 - 10:59 PM

Hyphens dropped from words? Not in dictionaries over here anyway. Some word, yes. But new hyphenated ones keep on coming along.

What amazes me with this song is why so many people persist in singing the first line of the second verse the way Christina Rossetti wrote it, which with Holst's tune is virtually unsingable, no matter how people manage to struggle through it.

It works far better just as "Heaven cannot hold him", and means exactly the same. It's a lovely song, both words and tune, and deserves to be allowed to adjust itself so that the words fit the tune properly.

Subject: RE: BS: in the bleak midwinter
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 16 Dec 01 - 11:47 PM

Mcgrath, both the OED and Webster's Collegiate put it midwinter, with the hyphenated form in the also rans. You are just out-of-date- but so am I because I put the - in when I searched.

Subject: RE: BS: in the bleak midwinter
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Dec 01 - 12:41 AM

OK, so the Holst tune is here (click). I wonder if I can find a MIDI of the tune by Darke.
So far, no luck.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: in the bleak midwinter
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Dec 01 - 08:05 AM

Pedantic note: Dicho, I wasn't querying the absence of the hyphen in "midwinter", I was questioning whether it's true to say of hyphens in general "They were standard in the 19C but for most words were gradually dropped through time." I don't fancy doing a count of words in dictionaries of the 19th century and the 21st to settle the point, but there still seem an awful lot around.

Of course, if you were a contestant in Countdown on TV, this kind of thing makes all the difference. Otherwise it seems pretty flexible. I mean, who cares if it's e-mail or email?

Subject: RE: BS: in the bleak midwinter
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 17 Dec 01 - 11:17 AM

Never thought of the Cyberhymnal. The Holst tune is the one I have always heard.

Subject: RE: BS: in the bleak midwinter
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 17 Dec 01 - 11:42 AM

Many choirs have recorded the Darke version. I can't find a midi. I wonder how close it is to the Holst version. The choir of King' College, Cambridge, has it on A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols (EMI). Winchester has a cd out with it also.

Subject: Tune Add: IN THE BLEAK MID-WINTER
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Dec 01 - 11:52 AM

I made a MIDITEXT of the basic Darke tune, which I found in The Shorter New Oxford Book of Carols (with the longer name). Can't say I've ever heard it, but SNOBC contends it is superior to the Holst tune.
-Joe Offer-

---

MIDI file: BLEKMDWN.MID

Timebase: 192

Name: In the Bleak Mid-winter
Text: By Christina Rossetti - Harold Arrke
Copyright: Copyright © Stainer & Bell, Ltd.
Key: G
TimeSig: 4/4 24 8
Start
0000 1 71 110 0256 0 71 000 0032 1 69 110 0094 0 69 000 0002 1 74 110 0160 0 74 000 0032 1 71 110 0160 0 71 000 0032 1 67 110 0336 0 67 000 0048 1 66 110 0336 0 66 000 0048 1 64 110 0256 0 64 000 0032 1 66 110 0094 0 66 000 0002 1 67 110 0160 0 67 000 0032 1 64 110 0160 0 64 000 0032 1 62 110 0720 0 62 000 0048 1 67 110 0256 0 67 000 0032 1 67 110 0094 0 67 000 0002 1 71 110 0160 0 71 000 0032 1 67 110 0160 0 67 000 0032 1 76 110 0336 0 76 000 0048 1 74 110 0336 0 74 000 0048 1 71 110 0160 0 71 000 0032 1 69 110 0160 0 69 000 0032 1 74 110 0256 0 74 000 0032 1 67 110 0094 0 67 000 0002 1 72 110 0720 0 72 000 0048 1 71 110 0256 0 71 000 0032 1 69 110 0094 0 69 000 0002 1 74 110 0160 0 74 000 0032 1 67 110 0160 0 67 000 0032 1 65 110 0256 0 65 000 0032 1 64 110 0094 0 64 000 0002 1 64 110 0336 0 64 000 0048 1 67 110 0384 0 67 000 0000 1 72 110 0160 0 72 000 0032 1 64 110 0160 0 64 000 0032 1 62 110 0720 0 62 000 0048 1 67 110 0256 0 67 000 0032 1 69 110 0094 0 69 000 0002 1 71 110 0160 0 71 000 0032 1 67 110 0160 0 67 000 0032 1 67 110 0192 0 67 000 0000 1 69 110 0160 0 69 000 0032 1 71 110 0192 0 71 000 0000 1 72 110 0160 0 72 000 0032 1 74 110 0720 0 74 000 0048 1 74 110 0528 0 74 000 0048 1 71 110 0160 0 71 000 0032 1 67 110 0720 0 67 000
End

This program is worth the effort of learning it.

To download the latest version of MIDItext and get instructions on how to use it click here

ABC format:

X:1
T:In the Bleak Mid-winter
M:4/4
Q:1/4=120
K:G
B3Ad2B2|G4F4|E3FG2E2|D8|G3GB2G2|e4d4|B2A2d3G|
c8|B3Ad2G2|=F3EE4|G4c2E2|D8|G3AB2G2|G2A2B2c2|
d8|d6B2|G15/2||

Subject: RE: In the Bleak Midwinter
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 17 Dec 01 - 11:56 AM

Sheet music for the Holst version, with midi, on:
www.rememberjosie.org/carols/index.asp

Subject: RE: In the Bleak Midwinter
From: GUEST,JohnB
Date: 17 Dec 01 - 12:22 PM

I may be screwed up here but I think that the Darke version is an arrangement of the Holst tune. There is another completely different tune which this is sung to as well, though I can't remember who wrote that one. Just going from memory, no music here at work. Johnb

Subject: RE: In the Bleak Midwinter
From: Anglo
Date: 17 Dec 01 - 12:25 PM

Shawn Colvin appeared on US TV over the weekend singing this in a Boston Pops concert, which also featured the Chieftains & Natalie MacMaster. She sang the Holst version (unattributed to Holst, credited "arr. Colvin/Petty" - I assume that's her pianist). I believe she's recorded it. I don't recommend it.

Subject: RE: In the Bleak Midwinter
From: masato sakurai
Date: 17 Dec 01 - 12:30 PM

Darke's "In the Bleak Midwinter" sung by The Choir of St Mary's Episcopal Cathedral, Edinburgh is HERE and HERE. Score (PDF sample page) is HERE.
~Masato

Subject: RE: In the Bleak Midwinter
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Dec 01 - 01:08 PM

That's a beautiful recording, Masato. I think it's quite different from the Holst tune, but maybe not different enough to attract notice. I think the Holst tune is certainly more memorable.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: In the Bleak Midwinter
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 17 Dec 01 - 01:18 PM

Once again Masato has found some fabulous links! Joe, I can't hear it on this computer, but I'll make a midi for you (the DT) from the pdf file.

Subject: RE: In the Bleak Midwinter
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Dec 01 - 01:29 PM

er...Mary, please note above that I already made and posted a MIDI....
-Joe-

Subject: RE: In the Bleak Midwinter
From: GUEST,McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Dec 01 - 01:31 PM

If it was a folk song, I'd call the Darke a variant of the Holst tune. I note that it still doesn't get over the problem of including the words "Our God" in the second line, which means rushing the rest of the line uncomfortably.

I think Christina Rossetti would have been with me in thinking it better with the line shortened.(After all when she wrote it, the tune wouldn't have been in her mind.)

When it comes up in carol services (and I'm always pleased when it does), I tend to take a break at that line and come in with it as "Heaven cannot hold him - and I think most people in the congregation do the same. If there's a choir, let them worry about singing the impossible version.

Subject: RE: In the Bleak Midwinter
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 17 Dec 01 - 01:37 PM

Skipped right over that Joe...can you easily convert that to the midi file for the DT?

---

Yep - no problemo, mi amiga.
Jose

Subject: RE: In the Bleak Midwinter
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 17 Dec 01 - 01:53 PM

Great, Masato! I agree, Joe; the Holst "original" is the bleaker of the two, hence my preference. The Harold Darke version, however, is good for a youthful choir.

Subject: RE: In the Bleak Midwinter
From: katlaughing
Date: 31 Dec 09 - 07:46 PM

There is a beautiful instrumental of this on youtube by Loreena McKennit. I looked for the lyrics through the supersearch and got zilch. I put "bleak midwinter" in the thread title box search and set the date to "all" and found this. Is it supposed to be in the DT now?

Thanks for all of the info. I love this tune.

Subject: RE: In the Bleak Midwinter
From: Rumncoke
Date: 31 Dec 09 - 08:12 PM

I sang this at school in Yorkshire - fifty years ago - and our pianist used to take it at quite a lick, non of the doleful dirges sometimes heard.

It was quite easy to sing the second verse because the music had a 'bom bom' between verses, filled in between first and second verses but not subsequently.

Anne Croucher

Subject: RE: In the Bleak Midwinter
From: Arkie
Date: 31 Dec 09 - 09:08 PM

One of my favorite Christmas hymns and more good versions are appearing it seems. Have heard good versions from Moody Blues, James Taylor, Michael Martin Murphy, Mollie O'Brien, Diane Taraz, and Steeleye Span. James Taylor changed the words a bit.

Subject: RE: In the Bleak Midwinter
From: katlaughing
Date: 31 Dec 09 - 10:42 PM

The links above are out of date, so here is a lovely video of Darke's version on YOUTUBE by the Winchester Cathedral Choir.

I have heard this one, but I have to say I love Holtz's version much better.

There is one of it by Kings College Cambridge HERE.

Subject: RE: In the Bleak Midwinter
From: GUEST,David E.
Date: 31 Dec 09 - 11:10 PM

And was once a Christmas single by Bert Jansch. Anyone remember singles?

David E.

Subject: RE: In the Bleak Midwinter
From: Jack Campin
Date: 01 Jan 10 - 09:21 AM

Here's another variation on it:

  X:1
  T:Midwinter Waltz
  C:Dave Richardson
  M:3/4
  L:1/8
  K:G
     GA|B3c d2|d3B A2|A3B A2|G4 
  [1 EG|A3B A2|A3B A2|G3A Bc|A4:|
  [2 EG|A3B A2|A3B A2|G3A G2|G4:|
     AB|c3B c2|c3B c2|e3d e2|A3B
     c2|d3e d2|B3A G2|A3B G2|A4
  [1 AB|c3B c2|c3B c2|e3d e2|A3B
     c2|d3e d2|B3A G2|A3B A2|G4:|
  [2 GA|B3c d2|d3B A2|A3B A2|G4
     EG|A3B A2|A3B A2|G3A G2|G4|]

Subject: RE: In the Bleak Midwinter
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 01 Jan 10 - 11:34 AM

I agree with you, kat. I like the Holst version better too.

In fact, I consider the Darke version tuneless and hard to sing. Listen to the choir boys at Winchester carefully and note how out of tune they are on the word 'stone.' It's an unnatural interval, and it's hard to hit.

Subject: RE: In the Bleak Midwinter
From: Surreysinger
Date: 01 Jan 10 - 01:05 PM

Sorry - can't agree. The Darke version was the only one I had ever sung until I joined adult choirs in the 1970's. As far as I am concerned it's the PROPER tune to the poem. I find the Holst rather sweet and to be frank twee... give me the Darke version every time. Unfortunately, you don't hear it that often, as everyone usually "does" the Holst version and makes a complete hash of it. Having had to sing it over the years in various choirs I can't say that I have ever found the "Our God heaven cannot hold him" a particular problem. It's just a rather ugly line which is never going to sit too well with whichever tune is used,and the problem doesn't lie with the first two words but with the word heaven, the last vowel of which needs to be thrown away rather than pronounced. There's more of a problem with what to do with the word "iron" in the first verse IMHO! Thanks for the Winchester video of the Darke version by the way, even if it is rather a strange one (why do they hang onto the word LONG so long in the first verse - certainly not the way it's written!)

Subject: RE: In the Bleak Midwinter
From: Surreysinger
Date: 01 Jan 10 - 01:09 PM

I was intrigued to google for further information. It seems the Darke version was voted the best carol of all time in 2008 by a panel of choral arrangers and choral conductors. Additonally, there are quite a few more than three settings of the poem. Herewith the Wikipedia paragraph on that point:

"The text of this Christmas poem has been set to music many times, the most famous settings being composed by Gustav Holst and Harold Edwin Darke in the early 20th century. There is another settingâ€"less well knownâ€"from the same era, by Thomas B. Strong. Benjamin Britten includes a setting for chorus in his work "A Boy Was Born". Eric Thiman wrote a setting for solo voice and piano. More recently Bob Chilcott, at one time a member of The King's Singers, wrote a choral setting entitled "Mid-winter". Another recent setting is that by a Canadian, Robert C L Watson. The Holst version has been recorded by a number of popular recording artists, including Bert Jansch, Julie Andrews in 1982, Allison Crowe in 2004, Maire Brennan in 2005 and Sarah McLachlan in 2006, as well as by many choirs including the Robert Shaw Chorale and the choir of St. John's College, Cambridge. The Darke version, with its beautiful and delicate organ accompaniment, has also gained popularity among choirs in recent years, after the King's College Choir included it on its radio broadcasts of the Nine Lessons and Carols. (Incidentally, Darke served as conductor of the choir during World War II.) A new musical setting by Jane Duzan Eubanks was premiered Christmas Eve 2009 at St John's Church, Randolph VT."

Subject: RE: In the Bleak Midwinter
From: ClaireBear
Date: 01 Jan 10 - 01:18 PM

I always think of this as "the Breastfeeding Carol" and love it dearly, but I'm disappointed that its most intimate verse is left out of so many church hymnals. Indeed, it isn't in the lyrics that Joe posted above, although it is in Allison's:

Enough for him whom cherubim worship night and day,
A breast full of milk and a manger full of hay:
Enough for Him whom angels fall down before,
The wise men and the shepherds who adore.

Subject: RE: In the Bleak Midwinter
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 01 Jan 10 - 01:32 PM

I always associate this carol with Barbara Dickson, who sang only the first verse, and then segued beautifully into "Here Comes the Sun".

A musical stroke of genius ...

Subject: RE: In the Bleak Midwinter
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Jan 10 - 02:23 PM

I think Barbara Dickson's version gains enormoyusly by here choosing to sing "midwinter" with a short second syllable, the same way the word is pronounced when it is spoken, rather than stretching it out the way it is generally done in when this is sung.

The hymn books I'm familiar with( Catholic ones) fortunately always seem to have the verse Claire Bear mention. Strange how censorship creeps in.

Another carol verse that we always sing, which seems, for some reason, to have been removed from some hymn books, is from Oh Little Town of Bethlehem:

Where children pure and happy
Pray to the blessed Child,
Where misery cries out to thee,
Son of the mother mild;
Where charity stands watching
And faith holds wide the door
The dark night wakes, the glory breaks,
And Christmas comes once more.

Subject: RE: In the Bleak Midwinter
From: ClaireBear
Date: 01 Jan 10 - 02:31 PM

Roman Catholic, McGrath? That's interesting. I had assumed otherwise, because (another assumption) I figured that a Catholic hymnal would be where Joe would look first, and he didn't post that verse.

That verse is definitely omitted from the major Episcopal hymnal ), to my lasting regret.

C

Subject: RE: In the Bleak Midwinter
From: katlaughing
Date: 01 Jan 10 - 02:38 PM

Such prudes. I didn't expect that of the Episcopalians.

Murray, thanks for the link. That was really neat!

Subject: RE: In the Bleak Midwinter
From: Marje
Date: 01 Jan 10 - 02:47 PM

Surreysinger: why do so many English people have such a problem with "iron"? They seem to pronounce it as if it were spelt "ion" or "iorn".
Scottish and Irish speakers pronounce it to rhyme with "siren" or "Byron", and then there's no problem about how to fit it into two syllables.

Marje