The Page
Christmastime, 1871. A woman opens the family’s January 1872 issue of Scribner’s Monthly (an illustrated family literary magazine published in New York City). She reads about an exciting journey through the enormous trees of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California, the recent success of opera productions in New York City, along with various Christmas-related poetry. She stops on page 278, which includes a beautiful half-page illustration of the Nativity scene. Beneath the image is a poem titled “A Christmas Carol.” But this is not Charles Dickens. The five verses describing Jesus’ birth and the ultimate gift to give him are from a woman poet on the other side of the Atlantic.
A Carol With No Tune
Christina Rossetti came from a Victorian family of artists, including her father Gabriele Rossetti (poet and scholar), her sister Maria (author), and her two brothers, Dante Gabriel (painter and poet) and William (art critic and writer). She lived almost her whole life just in London. Christina was a prolific poet, writing over 1,100 poems, including such works as “Goblin Market,” “Remember,” and “Love Came Down at Christmas.” While the poem was well received, the widespread attention and acclaim would only come after it was set to music.
The five verses of “A Christmas Carol” are neither triumphant nor sentimental about the birth of Jesus, but reflect a vulnerable tenderness between a mother and her newborn son. A mother’s simple kiss is elevated over the appearance of angels and archangels, and the best gift we can give is the most fragile thing we possess. Rossetti’s “snow on snow” from the first verse is not naive meteorology for Bethlehem (although the area did receive a rare heavy snowstorm in December 2013); rather, the bleak midwinter snow is a metaphor for the spiritually frozen world into which Jesus was born. The poem lived for more than thirty years as words alone, and Rossetti died in 1894 before a tune ever existed for the eventual carol.
Cranham
Gustav Holst, a prominent composer best known for his orchestral suite The Planets, set “A Christmas Carol” to music, published in 1906. Holst was close friends with another composer, Ralph Vaughan Williams, who was editing a new collection of hymns, The English Hymnal, with Percy Dearmer and asked Holst to contribute. Vaughan Williams and Dearmer were looking to steer church music away from sentimental hymnals such as Hymns Ancient and Modern, and toward folk-inspired tunes with stronger melodies that were easier for a congregation to sing. Among the three works Holst submitted was his tune to accompany Rossetti’s words, which was labeled “Cranham.” According to local legend, “Cranham” was composed in Cranham (Gloucestershire, England), and a local cottage there has been renamed the “Midwinter Cottage” in honor of Holst’s famous setting.
Despite accompanying such an extraordinary text, Holst’s tune is simple enough for an untrained congregation to sing, and it refuses to dramatize the theology of the words. The contour of the melody is mostly conjunct, moving by small steps with limited leaps throughout, and the harmonic language is plain. The tune sounds somber and feels more like a Lenten anthem than a Christmas song. Not every Christmas tune needs to be joyful. The structure is a standard strophic form, repeating the same music for each verse, and the tempo is slow enough to allow the singer and listener to reflect on the emotional message of the words.
The genius of Holst’s craft is how the tune navigates the structural issues presented within Rossetti’s poem. The poem’s syllable counts change from stanza to stanza, so much so that hymnals typically classify the tune’s meter as Irregular. As the counts shift, Holst’s tune bends with them while keeping the melody clear and the words audible. Even The English Hymnal offered a rare hymnal apology for it by disclaiming, “The metre of this hymn is peculiar. The music as printed is that of the first verse, and it can easily be adapted to the others.” The English Hymnal brought the tune into wide use, and The Oxford Book of Carols added it in 1928, solidifying its place in the repertoire.
The Other Answer
While Holst provided the congregational musical answer to setting Rossetti’s “A Christmas Carol,” Harold Darke set out to offer an alternative for more technically gifted choral ensembles. Darke was a talented composer, and he served as the organist of St. Michael’s Cornhill for fifty years. He wrote his setting of “In the Bleak Midwinter” when he was a 21-year-old student at the Royal College of Music, and it was published in 1911. The carol was written as a Christmas present to express his gratitude to Margaret Agnes Calkin (with the inscription “To MAC”), a family friend who helped pay for Darke’s education after the death of his father While Holst wrote within a congregation’s reach, Darke wrote his arrangement with professionally trained singers in mind.
Darke’s more complex arrangement is for SATB choir and organ, and he sets only four of the five verses, leaving out the fourth verse about angels and archangels and a mother’s kiss. While the melody remains consistent throughout each verse (shifting syllable counts aside), Darke gives each verse its own texture through different voices, harmonies, and dynamics. After a brief organ introduction, a soprano solo sings the mostly quiet first verse with organ accompaniment, followed by the full choir a cappella singing the louder second verse. A tenor solo carries the third verse with the organ accompanying once again, and the choir a cappella returns for the final verse, reprising the final line “give my heart” for a dramatic finish. In a 2008 BBC Music Magazine poll of top choral experts from the UK and the US, the Darke setting of “In the Bleak Midwinter” was ranked the best Christmas carol of all time (“Silent Night” came in at #25). Yet this is the version congregations almost never sing.
Give My Heart
Holst gives a congregation a straightforward tune they can sing despite the irregularly metered text, while Darke gives the trained choir a more advanced work that changes voicing according to the text. The experience is different depending on whether we are singing along with Holst or listening intently to Darke. Communal participation against interior devotion. We should not rank these two settings as best and second-best; they are two worthy interpretations of a powerful text.
Both end where Rossetti ended, revealing the best gift of all:
What can I give Him,
Poor as I am?
[...]
Yet what I can give Him,
Give my heart.
Sources and Further Reading
Christina Rossetti: A Writer’s Life, by Jan Marsh. A biography of Rossetti that explores her personal and creative life.
Christina Rossetti and the Bible, by Elizabeth Ludlow. Examines how Rossetti engaged with scripture in her writing.
Gustav Holst: The Man and His Music, by Michael Short. A biography of Holst from an author who had full access to Holst’s private correspondence.
Listen Along - Recommended Playlist
Listen to both the Holst “Cranham” setting and the Darke “In the Bleak Midwinter” arrangements of Rossetti’s poem. Also, listen to various arrangements by Julie Andrews, James Taylor, and other artists.