In the Bleak Midwinter (Holst)

English poet Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) wrote “In the Bleak Midwinter” in response to a request for a Christmas poem by the American magazine Scribner’s Monthly in 1872. It was published posthumously in her Poetic Works in 1904 and became a popular Christmas carol after its inclusion in The English Hymnal (1906) in a setting with music by Gustav Holst.

Contrasting keys, dynamics, and instrument textures make this a sonorous yet easily accessible arrangement for the brass quintet.