For today, another setting (like yesterday) of the Dora Greenwell text “If ye would hear the angels sing”.
For all its elegance, the Peter Tranchell setting I shared yesterday doesn't let itself get overly involved in setting the text. This is not so with today’s setting by St. Louis composer Martha Shaffer.
Shaffer’s brilliant setting helped me to actually pay attention to the words of this carol for the first time this year. She gives a masterful SSAATTBB rendering of a Dutch tune found in the Oxford Book of Carols. And, keeping it in the family, so to speak, her arrangement is also published by Oxford.
Listen here to a recording made by the St. Louis Chamber Chorus (almost undoubtedly with Martha Shaffer in the recording booth):
Particularly exuberant, in Shaffer’s hands, is the evangelical thrust of the final two stanzas:
If ye would hear the angels sing, Christians! See ye let each door Stand wider than it e’er stood before, On Christmas Day in the morning. Rise, and open wide the door; Christians, rise! The world is wide, And many there be that stand outside, Yet Christmas comes in the morning.
Labels: 12 Carols for Christmas, Christmas, Martha Shaffer
The page you're reading is part of Sinden.org
©MMXVII Sinden.org: a site for fun and prophet
Post a Comment