Let It Snow!

As Christmas fast approaches, many of us wish for a holiday with snow (especially those of us in the South, where such an event is rare indeed).  I find myself thinking more and more about songs that include “snow” as part of the overall theme.   My favorite secular song is Irving Berlin’s White Christmas.  It is a wonderfully sentimental song and was a tremendous hit with our armed forces when it was first introduced during the Second World War.  Our young men and women, whether serving in the Pacific or in Europe, were reminded of home, family, and what they were fighting to protect when they heard the words by that great American songwriter, Irving Berlin:

I’m dreaming of a white Christmas

just like the ones I used to know.

Where the treetops glisten and children listen

to hear sleigh bells in the snow.

I’m dreaming of a white Christmas

with every Christmas card I write.

May your days be merry and bright,

and may all your Christmases be white.

Many of my favorite carols also introduce the subject of snow.  Consider the exquisite poem by Christina Rossetti, set beautifully to music by Gustav Holst, as well as by Harold Darke.  The piece is In the Bleak Midwinter:

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 midwinter, long ago.

Still, Still, Still is another piece which never fails to move me.  My church choir did a Mack Wilberg setting of this lovely little lullaby at its recent Christmas concerts.

Still, still, still,

One can hear the falling snow.

For all is hushed, the world is sleeping,

Holy Star its vigil keeping.

Still, still, still,

One can hear the falling snow.

I’m sure you have some favorite Christmas/Holiday “snow” selections.  How about sharing them in this blog.  You may even find that your suggestion is included in one of my future concerts!

Songs for Snow

Those of us living in the Atlanta area have just experienced our first real snow fall of the season, and it has been a beautiful site to behold!  It is also my understanding that for the first time ever there is snow on the ground in all fifty states.  Certainly, in some of those locations the residents would very much like to see it go away, but for us in the south it is a joyous experience.  Whether viewing it from the warm indoors, or venturing out for snowball fights, as I did with my wife and granddaughter, it is a marvel.

It made me think about the way choral composers have set words that remind us of this special time of year.  Consider John Rutter’s Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind, Morten Lauridsen’s Mid-Winter Songs, or that favorite at Christmas, Harold Darke’s In the Bleak Mid-Winter.  The Michael O’Neal Chamber Singers just sang a concert at the Falany Concert Hall of Reinhardt (soon to be repeated at the Alpharetta Presbyterian Church!) which included a beautiful set of songs by Eric Whitacre entitled Five Hebrew Love Songs.  The words are by his wife, Hila Plitmann, and the fourth song says, “What snow! Like little dreams falling from the sky.”  We are in the midst of snow and a very cold winter and I’m so thankful that we have meaningful choral music to accompany the experience.

Do you have some favorite winter songs?