JESUS CHRIST >> Birth
SDAH 126
In the bleak midwinter
Frosty wind made moan;
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Text
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.
2
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.
3
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;
Hymn Info
Biblical Reference
(b) Luke 2:13 (c) Prov 23:26
Author
Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) alt.
Copyright
Music copyright 1984 by Wayne Hooper
Hymn Tune
UINTA
Metrical Number
Irregular
Composer
Wayne Hooper (1920-2007)
Year Composed
1964
Alternate Tune
CRANHAM, SDAH 224
Theme
BIRTH OF JESUS CHRIST
Get the hymn sheet in other keys here
Recommended Reading
For this edition of Singer’s Notes, we had the opportunity of interviewing Myrtle Mosquera or Tims (as she is fondly called by family and friends). She is our featured artist for In the Bleak Midwinter. Watch her rendition of Brenda Portman’s arrangement of this timeless hymn, and then join us as Tims shares her views on voice and singing as we use it to glorify God’s name.
Notes
Get to know the hymns a little deeper with the SDA Hymnal Companion. Use our song leader’s notes to engage your congregation in singing with understanding. Even better, involve kids in learning this hymn with our homeschooling materials.
Christina Georgina Rossetti was born December 5, 1830, in St. Pancras, London, the daughter of an Italian refugee who became a professor at King’s College, London. Her first verses of poetry were published by her grandfather when she was 12. Her brother, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, a famous poet and painter, used her beautiful face as a model for the virgin Mary in his painting Ecce Ancilla Domini.
This sensitive hymn about the birth of Jesus is one of four Christmas Poems in her Poetical Works, 1904, which carries the note “written before 1872,” and was titled “A Christmas Carol.” It began life as a hymn in the English Hymnal, 1906 (Church of England), and has been used by many hymnals since that time, continuing to gain in popularity. The last line Originally was “Yet what I can I give Him, Give my heart.”
Christina twice broke off proposals of marriage, once because her fiancé became a Catholic. As a result of this sorrow and a lingering illness, she sought and found comfort in her sincere religious devotion. She died on December 29, 1894.
The tune name UINTA (pronounced “you-IN-ta”) is the middle name of the composer’s wife, Harriet Uinta Schwender-Hooper; of their daughter, Janice Uinta Hooper-Lind; and of Harriet’s mother, Esther Uinta Clark- Schwender. It is also the name of a tribe of American Indians, and a range of mountains in Utah.
The music was composed by Wayne Hooper (1920- ; see Biographies), especially for the Hymnsingers, a group made up of the King’s Heralds Quartet, whose music has been heard on the Voice of Prophecy radio broadcast for more than 50 years, beginning in 1937; Del Delker, contralto soloist since 1947 on the same program; and Maurita (Bunny) Phillips-Thornburgh, music teacher, clinician, choral director, and soloist with the Roger Wagner Chorale and other choirs and orchestras in America and Europe. It was first published in a little book of Christmas carols titled The First Noel, which was offered in 1964 as a gift to all who sent contributions for the support of this international radiobroadcast of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
The tune associated with this text in most hymnals is CRANHAM, by the great English composer Gustav Holst (see SDAH 224), which is given as an alternate tune.
-from Companion to the Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal by Wayne Hooper and Edward E. White
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