Tansy Davies – Christmas Eve (World Première)

by 5:4

The highlight of this year’s Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College, Cambridge was the commissioned carol, composed by Tansy Davies, setting Christina Rossetti’s poem Christmas Eve. Considering Tansy’s previous output, which consists largely of hard-edged, punchy instrumental works, it was hard to know quite what to expect. On the one hand, Christmas Eve is a definite stylistic departure, but on the other, it’s a seriously beguiling one. In parallel with the text, the piece blows hot and cold through the opening stanza, exploring some intriguing and paradoxical contrasts: “Christmas hath a darkness/Brighter than the blazing noon”. In the first line of each phrase, Tansy establishes a series of winding, independent strands, lingering over the words (finally – a composer unafraid to repeat whole lines of text!); these strands are then pulled together, creating some marvellous chords, before the choir erupts with the answering line. It’s a masterly approach, one that bears repetition, but thankfully is modified in the second verse, where the text veers off into a more celebratory tone. Both verses conclude with an exciting fanfare-like response to the line “Christmas bringeth Jesus”, followed by a strange and faintly tragic ending—”brought for us so low”—where trailing lines slowly drag downward (a moment that bears some stylistic comparison to Thomas Adès). Overall, it’s an imaginative and thoughtful response to Rossetti’s text (at last providing choirs with an alternative to In the Bleak Midwinter), one that places the entire focus on the words and forces the listener—as the best choral pieces do—to reflect hard on them.


Text

Christmas hath a darkness
Brighter than the blazing noon,
Christmas hath a chillness
Warmer than the heat of June,
Christmas hath a beauty
Lovelier than the world can show:
For Christmas bringeth Jesus,
Brought for us so low.

Earth, strike up your music,
Birds that sing and bells that ring;
Heaven hath answ’ring music
For all Angels soon to sing:
Earth, put on your whitest
Bridal robe of spotless snow:
For Christmas bringeth Jesus,
Brought for us so low.

—Christina Rossetti


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Chris in Cary

Thank you for the post. I was away from any source during the service, so it is great to have this available for listening after the fact.

Kei

I’ve attended 9LC at king’s twice but i clearly remember this year, 2011, was exceptional from the beginning. I’d love to get a full version of the service in 2011 if you have it…!

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