This isn’t the James Taylor rendition that convinced me CRANHAM could–just–work with the Christina Rossetti words, but it still has enough of the elements of the one that did to make it to this year’s posting:
It’s not CRANHAM (and I don’t know offhand just what the tune is), but Sarah McLachlan offers a really nice treatment:
It’s so very characteristic of McLachlan’s work that, especially since I cannot find any other notation even on her own website, I have to believe the tune could well be her own. Any reader who knows more about the tune, please chime in, mmK?
Both artists, of course, modify the words to suit their selected tunes, but not in ways that are disservice to the Rossetti text, even including McLachlan’s inexplicable–to me–alteration of “the” to “a” in the title and first and fourth lines.
The Rossetti text, of course, follows the Northern Hemispheric, European conceit of a “midwinter” birth of Christ–snow and all that–but that doesn’t detract from the words’ impact:
In the bleak midwinter
By Christina RossettiIn 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 Almighty, Jesus Christ.Enough for Him, whom cherubim, worship night and day,
Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels fall before,
The ox and ass and camel which adore.Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
But His mother only, 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.