I wonder as I wander - John Rutter (arr.), Gerald Finley, The Cambridge Singers

9. I wonder as I wander
From the album 'Christmas Night'

Arranger John Rutter
Conductor John Rutter
Baritone Gerald Finlay
Choir The Cambridge Singers

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I wonder as I wander
The musical folklorist and singer John Jacob Niles collected this haunting carol in the Appalachian mountains in the 1930s. It was first published in his collection 'Songs of the Hill Folk' and soon became widely known in North America. More recently it has gained a place in the English carol repertory. This setting, for unaccompanied choir with baritone solo, dates from 1981.

I wonder as I wander out under the sky,
How Jesus, the Saviour, did come for to die.
For poor ornery people like you and like I;
I wonder as l wander out under the sky.

When Mary birthed Jesus, ’twas in a cows’ stall,
With wise-men and farmers and shepherds and all.
But high from God’s heaven a star’s light did fall,
And the promise of ages it then did recall.

If Jesus had wanted for any wee thing:
A star in the sky, or a bird on the wing;
Or all of God’s angels in heaven to sing,
He surely could have had it, ‘cause he was the King.
(Appalachian carol collected by John Jacob Niles)

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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