To Wonder Worship and Adore

Article written November 2023, Premiere Performance took place Dec 3, 2023

Premiere Performance of a new Carol by
Artistic Director, Paul Grindlay

I am excited to extent to you the opportunity to hear the first public performance of a carol, for which I wrote both the text and the music. Now, I don't harbour (m)any delusions about being either Yeats, Keats, Bach or Mozart, but I am quite happy with how this piece turned out, and I hope you will enjoy it too.

The Nativity by Sandro Botticelli (c. 1473 - 1475)

Canadian composter, Marie-Claire Saindon, had asked me if I had any Christmas carol texts, after setting another text of mine in a commissioned work for an Edmonton High School Choir. I told her I did not, but that I would write something specifically for her, and that is how this text came into the world.

Marie-Claire has been too busy since to set it, so I thought I'd have a go at setting it for CRSP, and immediately perceived some possibilities for form and melodic ideas. Buried somewhere at the core of this piece is the "O Magnum Mysterium" text, about how lowly barnyard animals were the first to see the saviour of the world, and how that life-changing moment must have caused all the beings who witnessed it to stop, feel and process that profoundly beautiful experience, and that this was something that occurred more as "kairos" (an opportune and timeless moment) than as "chronos" (a measurable period, particular hour or day).

TO WONDER, WORSHIP & ADORE

Long ago in Bethlehem
when Mary held her new-born son
for loving arms encircled love
for everything and everyone ....
For everything and everyone,
today, tomorrow, evermore,
and blessed Mary paused a while
to wonder, worship and adore.

Gentle Joseph did his duty
long ago in Bethlehem
for he found love, he knew beauty
and he embraced the both of them...
And he embraced the both of them,
that holy night, and evermore ...
he paused in silence for a while
to wonder, worship and adore.

Would that I were at that stable,
lit by radiant starlight,
to see the child and hear the angels
celebrate that holy night,
when heaven and earth united
and every wrong was righted.

There was magic in that manger,
long ago in Bethlehem,
when kings bowed down, angels shone
and shepherds joined to sing with them,
entranced by what they heard and saw,
as all creation paused a while
to wonder, worship and adore.