Why would a novice composer choose such a treacherous path?

Why create a new arrangement of one of the most popular and beloved German Christmas carols dating back to the 1600s?

Here’s why.

It began in the 1960s, when I was a boy chorister with the Christ Church Cathedral choir in Vancouver. Each Christmas we would sing the English version of “Es ist ein Ros entsprungen” – “Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming” – and I instantly fell in love with the piece.

This classic, timeless arrangement by Michael Praetorius (1571-1621) is perfection personified. He took some of the most beautiful religious poetry ever written (Mary’s birth to Jesus symbolized through the blooming of a floweret on a rose), and he presented it in the simplest of ways, with a melody that repeats itself three times each verse.

But with a small twist.

In the middle of each verse, there is a line where the altos sing a little 3-note rising figure that takes them (for a magical moment) above the sopranos! It is without doubt one of the most brilliant strokes of genius in all of music, and a passage that every year brings smiles to the faces of altos around the world at Christmas time.

I’ve had a longing to sing this piece for many moons now. And so, when Pierre Massie, the director of our Stairwell Carollers, announced that our 40th anniversary Christmas season was going to be an all Canadian program, I knew what I had to do.

If I was going to sing “Es ist ein Ros entsprungen” come Xmas 2017, I’d have to compose my own arrangement!

Read more HERE

David Rain (tenor)