In the Bleak Midwinter/Footprints in the Snow
Gustav
Holst/Claude
Debussy/arr. Paul
Carey
SSAA plus soloist/piano
Text
by Christina
Rossetti
Duration: 4:00
Difficulty rating
(1-5): 3
Premiered December
3, 2000 by Vox
Caelestis Women’s
Chorus, Oak Park IL,
directed by Paul
Carey
This is a piece which
combines Holst’s
familiar setting of
Rossetti’s text (in F
major) with Debussy’s
piano prelude
Footprints in the Snow
(in d minor, with nips
and tucks). The piece
is pretty barren,
cold, and sad until
the end, when it
shimmers with light as
the speaker in the
poem realizes he has
something to give to
the Christ Child --
his heart. If you like
unusual ideas and the
unexpected, this piece
is for you.
(If you are a Debussy
purist, maybe not!)
Complete perusal score available upon request.
TEXT
The full moon was shining
upon the broad sea;
I sang to the one star that
look'd down at me;
I sang to the white horse
that graz'd on the quay,--
As I walk'd down by the
high sea-wall.
But
my lips they,
My lips they,
Said never a word,
As I moped by the high
sea-wall.
The curlew's slow night
song came on the water.
That tremble of sweet notes
set my heart astir,
As I walk'd beside her, the
O'Connell's daughter,
I knew that I did love her.
But my lips
they,
My lips they,
Said never a word,
As we walk'd by the high
sea-wall.
The full moon has fallen, the night wind is
down
And I lie here thinking in bleak Bofin town.
I lie here and thinking, "I am not alone."
For here close beside me is O'Connell's
daughter,
And my lips they, my lips they,
Say many a many a word,
As we
embrace by the high sea-wall.
O! my lips they, my lips they,
say many a word,
As we kiss by the high sea-wall.
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