In the bleak midwinter
Gustav Holst · words Christina Rossetti
Choose your part: hear the opening with it lifted out of the choir, then practise it in the app. Free, and without an account.
- Voicing
- SATB
- Key
- F major
- Time
- 4/4
- Tempo
- quarter note = 74
- Length
- 16 bars
- Verses
- 4
The parts
The opening, 16 bars, on the app's piano: your part clearly, the others quietly.
Soprano part
Range
Lowest D4Highest D5
Alto part
Range
Lowest B♭3Highest F4
Tenor part
Range
Lowest D3Highest D4
Bass part
Range
Lowest G2Highest A3
Not sure which part you sing? Test your range
With a free account, the app plays the parts sung.
The words
Verse 1
In the bleak midwinter frosty wind made moan, earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone; snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow, in the bleak midwinter long ago.
Verse 2
Heaven cannot hold him, nor can earth sustain, heav'n and earth shall flee away when he comes to reign. In the bleak midwinter a stableplace sufficed the Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.
Verse 3
Angels and archangels may have gathered there, cherubim and seraphim thronged the air; but his mother only, in her maiden bliss, worshipped the Beloved with a kiss.
Verse 4
What can I give him, poor as I am? If I were a shepherd I would bring a lamb; if I were a wise man I would do my part; yet what I can give him, give my heart.
Free to sing: Gustav Holst died in 1934 and Christina Rossetti died in 1894.