Monthly Archives: December 2018

Poetry

Christina Rossetti’s In The Bleak Midwinter (1872)

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Giv­en the sea­son, it’s fair to assume that at some point soon you will be hear­ing a ren­der­ing of Christi­na Rossetti’s In The Bleak Mid­win­ter. For me, it was last Sun­day evening, at our local church’s Christ­mas car­ol con­cert, and of all the car­ols we know and love (or at least tol­er­ate despite the overkill of decades’ worth of rep­e­ti­tion), this is one I can tru­ly get behind, due in no small mea­sure to Gus­tav Holst’s fit­ting musi­cal set­ting.

Rossetti’s poem was first pub­lished (as A Christ­mas Car­ol) in the Jan­u­ary 1872 issue of Amer­i­can lit­er­ary peri­od­i­cal, Scribner’s Month­ly (thus just miss­ing Christ­mas, iron­i­cal­ly), and it presents her unique ver­sion of the nativ­i­ty sto­ry. It was set to music in 1906 by Gus­tav Holst (the com­pos­er of The Plan­ets suite), and again by Harold Darke in 1911. Darke’s ver­sion has become a sta­ple of the BBC’s Car­ols From King’s pro­gramme, which airs each year on Christ­mas day, but it’s Holst’s that brings the poem to life for me.

Here is the famous first stan­za of the poem:

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 mid-win­ter,
Long ago.

Ros­set­ti sets the pre-Nativ­i­ty scene unequiv­o­cal­ly: she piles on the snow (on snow, on snow) and the very sparse­ness of the lan­guage builds on the sense of bleak­ness intro­duced in the first line. We get it: it was a bleak land­scape (sur­pris­ing­ly, giv­en that the area is sub-trop­i­cal and snow only ever falls on the Golan Heights, but let’s not nit­pick).

As the poem con­tin­ues, we are intro­duced to the famil­iar jux­ta­po­si­tion of divine pow­er being cast in the hum­bling cir­cum­stances of the low­ly sta­ble, with its shep­herds and wise men, oxen and ass­es, cheru­bim and seraphim. It is a sim­ple cel­e­bra­tion of the Chris­t­ian faith, a win­ter warmer of an end­ing to thaw out the bleak snows of the first lines. But it is also a cel­e­bra­tion of moth­er­ly love, of the moth­er being the only one able to care for and love her child, despite the pres­ence of heav­en­ly hosts.

But only his moth­er
In her maid­en bliss
Wor­shipped the beloved
With a kiss

Rossetti’s poem is right­ly remem­bered anew each Christ­mas, in part because of its sim­ple lan­guage and mes­sage. With Holst’s tune, a can­dlelit church, and a con­gre­ga­tion of bescarfed car­ollers, it’s guar­an­teed to get a late bloomer into the Christ­mas spir­it. Here’s a won­der­ful ren­di­tion by the choir of Kings Col­lege, Cambridge…Merry Christ­mas!

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 mid-win­ter,
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 mid-win­ter
A sta­ble-place suf­ficed
The Lord God Almighty
Jesus Christ.

Enough for him, whom cheru­bim
Wor­ship night and day,
A breast­ful of milk,
And a manger­ful of hay:
Enough for him, whom angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
Which adore.

Angels and archangels
May have gath­ered there,
Cheru­bim and seraphim
Thronged the air -
But only his moth­er
In her maid­en bliss
Wor­shipped 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.

Christi­na Ros­set­ti

Music

Johannes Brahms’s Hungarian Dance no. 5 in G‑minor (1869)

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Accord­ing to influ­en­tial con­duc­tor Hans von Bülow, the Ger­man com­pos­er Johannes Brahms was one of the “three Bs” of musi­cal com­po­si­tion along with Johann Sebas­t­ian Bach and Lud­wig van Beethoven (an acco­lade that Brahms him­self would prob­a­bly have reject­ed giv­en his per­son­al ven­er­a­tion for both those com­posers). He was a vir­tu­oso pianist and a pro­lif­ic com­pos­er of sym­phonies, cham­ber music, piano, organ and choral works through­out the sec­ond half of the 19th cen­tu­ry. How­ev­er, it’s his ear­ly expe­ri­ences lead­ing to his series of Hun­gar­i­an dances that inter­est us here.

By the mid­dle of the 19th Cen­tu­ry, scores of Hun­gar­i­an immi­grants and refugees from through­out the Aus­tro-Hun­gar­i­an Empire were flood­ing into Aus­tria – most­ly to Vien­na, but also to many oth­er towns includ­ing Brahms’s home­town of Ham­burg. As a young musi­cian at the begin­ning of his musi­cal career, Brahms had to play light piano music at tav­erns to make mon­ey. He would also occa­sion­al­ly get hired as an accom­pa­nist for a tour­ing musi­cian, and on one evening he had the good for­tune to meet one of Hungary’s great tour­ing vio­lin­ists, Eduard Reményi. Brahms thus learned gyp­sy music in the inti­mate musi­cal com­pa­ny of the great­est gyp­sy vio­lin­ist of the time.

For­ev­er after cher­ish­ing gyp­sy music, Brahms would go on to pub­lish two sets of Hun­gar­i­an Dances for two pianos, 21 pieces in all. To this day, how­ev­er, Hun­gar­i­an Dance No. 5 is prob­a­bly the most beloved of his Dances. And right­ly so, with its enchant­i­ng first theme in a minor key, evok­ing the swag­ger and grav­i­tas of a mus­ta­chioed Slav lover. The first orches­tra­tion of No. 5 was not done by Brahms him­self but by Mar­tin Schmel­ing, but it was this orches­tra­tion of Brahms’s trans­for­ma­tion of gyp­sy music that helped it become one of the most trea­sured pieces in West­ern music’s reper­toire. Enjoy this suit­ably rous­ing ver­sion, appro­pri­ate­ly enough by the Hun­gar­i­an Phil­har­mon­ic Orches­tra.

 

Johannes Brahms