A Christmas Hymn (Huub de Lange)

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• CPDL #15297 (Orchestral version)   

Editor: Huub de Lange (submitted 2007-10-31).   Score information: A4, 30 pages, 404 kbytes   Copyright: Personal

• CPDL #17884 (Piano 4 hands version)  

Editor: Huub de Lange (submitted 2008-08-07).   Score information: A4, 21 pages, kbytes   Copyright: Personal

The piano 4-hands version is the final song of 3 Christmas Songs

General Information

Title: A Christmas Hymn
Composer: Huub de Lange
Lyricist: Richard Wilbur
For more choral settings by Huub de Lange of poems by Richard Wilbur see Four Wilbur Songs and Riddle.

Number of voices: 4vv   Voicing: SATB
Genre: Sacred, Carol

Language: English
Orchestration: Chamber orchestra and Piano (4 hands)
Published: 2007

External websites:

Original text and translations

English text

A stable-lamp is lighted

Whose glow shall wake the sky;

The stars shall bend their voices,

And every stone shall cry.

And every stone shall cry,

And straw like gold shall shine;

A barn shall harbor heaven,

A stall become a shrine.

This child through David’s city

Shall ride in triumph by;

The palm shall strew its branches,

And every stone shall cry.

And every stone shall cry,

Though heavy, dull, and dumb,

And lie within the roadway

To pave His kingdom come.

Yet He shall be forsaken,

And yielded up to die;

The sky shall groan and darken,

And every stone shall cry.

And every stone shall cry

For stony hearts of men:

God’s blood upon the spearhead,

God’s love refused again.

But now, as at the ending,

The low is lifted high;

The stars shall bend their voices,

And every stone shall cry.

And every stone shall cry

In praises of the child

By whose descent among us

The worlds are reconciled.