A Very Merry Christmas...

A Happy & Blessed Christmas to all readers of my BLOG!

I shall be listeing to the following works over the next couple of days:-

Gerald Finzi's In Terra Pax

Ralph Vaughan Williams's Hodie, The First Nowell and On Christmas Night

Victor Hely Hutchinson's A Carol Symphony

Benjamin Britten's A Boy was Born

I feel that the following poem by Robert Bridges sums up much of the ethos of The Land of Lost Content blog. The words were used by Finzi in the above mentioned work. To my mind it is one of the loveliest of Christmas pieces of music and I have listened to it for every year since Lyrita issued it on vinyl over quarter of a century ago. It sums up the composer's thoughts about the transience of life and the hope for the future. It is very much how I view the Season.

I am off to hear Mattins - in the Book of Common Prayer version - of course!

Noel: Christmas Eve, 1913

A frosty Christmas Eve

when the stars were shining

Fared I forth alone

where westward falls the hill,

And from many a village

in the water'd valley

Distant music reach'd me

peals of bells a ringing:

The constellated sounds

ran sprinkling on earth's floor

As the dark vault above

with stars was spangled o'er.

Then sped my thoughts to keep

that first Christmas of all

When the shepherds watching

by their folds ere the dawn

Heard music in the fields

and marveling could not tell

Whether it were angels

or the bright stars singing.

But to me heard afar

it was starry music

Angels' song, comforting

as the comfort of Christ

When He spake tenderly

to His sorrowful flock:

The old words came to me

by the riches of time

Mellow'd and transfigured

as I stood on the hill

Heark'ning in the aspect

of th'eternal silence.