We’ve just finished the Christmas concert season of the various choirs in which my daughter sings. I have delighted over the last few weeks at the sounds of the choirs, admittedly taking particular delight in a solo Elena sang in one of her Chamber Choir songs and in her piano accompaniment of one of the songs for her High School Concert Choir. (It was a piece for four hands on piano and so she provided the second set of hands, playing with the choir’s normal accompanist.) There is something about young voices lifted in song that warms the heart and brings smiles (if not tears) to the face.
One of the songs Elena’s Chamber Choir particularly enjoyed singing this year was In the Bleak Midwinter, the lyrics to which are taken from a poem by the 19th Century English poet, Christina Rosetti. The last verse of the song asks a question we all might be asking in these final days before Christmas – What can I give Him? What gift can I lay before the creche on Christmas morning? The song not only asks the question, but provides perhaps the best answer one can provide to the question:
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.
It was only recorded with a flipvideo, so there are some imperfections in the sound, but you can listen to the Minnetonka Chamber Choir singing In the Bleak Midwinter here.
Creo en Dios! 