10. Candlelight Carol
From the album 'Christmas Night'
Composer John Rutter
Conductor John Rutter
Choir The Cambridge Singers
Orchestra City of London Sinfonia
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Candlelight carol
This was written in response to a commission from the Church of the Assumption, Pittsburgh, in 1984. Originally for organ, the accompaniment was later scored by the composer for flute, oboe, harp and strings, in which version it is performed here.
How do you capture the wind on the water?
How do you count all the stars in the sky?
How can you measure the love of a mother,
Or how can you write down a baby’s first cry?
Candlelight, angel light, firelight and starglow
Shine on his cradle till breaking of dawn.
Gloria, gloria in excelsis Deo!
Angels are singing; the Christ child is born.
Shepherds and wise men will kneel and adore him.
Seraphim round him their vigil will keep;
Nations proclaim him their Lord and their Saviour.
But Mary will hold him and sing him to sleep.
Find him at Bethlehem laid in a manger:
Christ our Redeemer asleep in the hay.
Godhead incarnate and hope of salvation;
A child with his mother that first Christmas Day.
(Words and music: John Rutter)
Christmas Night
The theme of the album - Christmas Night - is the birth of Christ, reflected in the words and music of twenty-two carols spanning more than six centuries. Some of these carols have long been widely known and loved; others have become so thanks to the annual Christmas Eve Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at King’s College, Cambridge. But all of them focus on the central event of the Christmas story – the birth at Bethlehem – and on the characters in that story: the angels, the shepherds, the wise men, and the mother with her child.
John Rutter, English composer and conductor, is associated with choral music throughout the world. His recordings with the Cambridge Singers (the professional chamber choir he set up in 1983) have reached a wide global audience, many of them featuring his own music in definitive versions. Among John’s best-known choral works are Gloria, Requiem, Magnificat, Mass of the Children, and Visions, together with many church anthems, choral songs and Christmas carols.
Contact
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