BlueDotMusic's video: BeautifulChristmasCarol Acappella In The Bleak Midwinter Artisan bluedotmusic

"In the Bleak Midwinter" is a Christmas Carol based on a poem by the English poet Christina Rossetti. The poem was published, under the title "A Christmas Carol", in the January 1872 issue of Scribner's Monthly. The poem first appeared set to music in The English Hymnal in 1906 with a setting by Gustav Holst. Harold Darke's famous setting of Christina Rossetti's "In the Bleak Midwinter" is often sung at the service of Nine Lessons and Carols at King's College, Cambridge, and at similar services around the world. In the Bleak Midwinter was voted the greatest Christmas carol of all time in a poll of choral experts and choirmasters that was published on 7 December 2008 England’s Carol tradition is rich in folk poetry, heavily influenced by Europe, but retaining an integrity of its own. The word Carol, comes from the old French word, caroler, meaning, to dance in a ring. Many Carols are obviously dance tunes and they swing along jauntily. Genuine Carols may have faults of grammar and logic, but they retain a spontaneous expression of joy. Carols emerged relatively late in the history of Christianity in Britain - anything terpsichorean being frowned upon until the end of the dark ages. Thus the earliest song in this collection, Veni Veni Emmanuel, which dates from the 7th century, is pure ‘church.’ However as the church relaxed its stance, Carols, sung to dance tunes, began to be more respectable and by the time the spirit of modern humanism had permeated the Middle Ages, they even became respectable. This despite the fact that pagan symbols of fertility and solstice customs were openly incorporated into Carols such as 'The Holly and the Ivy' and 'The Sans Day Carol' (Holly Bears a Berry.) Later hymns are often mistakenly called Carols, but they have quite different characteristics and tend to use heavier tunes, more reminiscent of hard wooden pews than village dances. Wassails are purely secular and the word comes from the Norse, ‘wes hael,’ meaning be of good health. Download here https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/christmas-is-come-in/id320917273?i=320917281&ign-mpt=uo%3D6 Other videos by Artisan are on the Christmas Carols playlist; http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFA8BCB734E8EFD9D ©2015 blue dot music All Worldwide Rights Reserved. http://www.facebook.com/bluedotmusic Video created for blue dot music by Robert Nichol/Allcast http://www.allcast.co.uk