Becky McGlade: In the bleak midwinter: Mixed Choir A Cappella

A simple and short but very beautiful setting of the well-known Christina Rossetti text by Cornish composer Becky McGlade. An atmosphere of cold, winter stillness is conveyed in this piece with its gentle dissonances and slow, homophonic movement, and the music follows the natural rhythm of the words, resulting in frequent changes of bar length. Each verse is set to the same music, but in the final verse the music responds to the climax of the poem, with the words ‘give my heart’ repeated three times, rising in intensity but then falling away again to finish as the piece began, in quiet stillness. A rewarding sing and an excellent alternative to other frequently-performed settings of the text.