Christ Is Born Today

I guess I have to agree with Sir Paul: children who practice a Christmas song all year long are ding dong ding dongs....
Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

So, then, as the darkness had no beginning, neither will it ever have an end [...] So, then, is it eternal. The negation of aught else, is its affirmation. Where the light cannot come, there abideth the darkness. The light doth but hollow a mine out of the infinite extension of the darkness. And ever upon the steps of the light treadeth the darkness; yea, springeth in fountains and wells amidst it, from the secret channels of its mighty sea. Truly, man is but a passing flame, moving unquietly amid the surrounding rest of night; without which he yet could not be, and whereof he is in part compounded.

— Geo. MacDonald Phantastes

In late 2003, enormously pleased with both the accomplishment of having composed Nuhro (Op. 74) and with the St Paul’s choir’s creation of its première, as part of the “Karl Henning Evensong” on 16 November (a marvelous opportunity afforded me by then-M.D. Mark Engelhardt) I put the musical lesson of Nuhro to further use in my Opus 76, Hodie Christus natus est, including a clarinet obbligato tailored to myself, as both a thank-you and a Christmas gift to Mark and the choir. I composed the piece in a white heat, and while the piece was certainly ready for that Christmas, preparation of such a novel score in so tight a time frame was obviously impractical. Mark did program the piece with gratifying speed, though, choosing to program it as part of a Mothers Day concert, whose date happened to coincide with my mom-in-law’s birthday, so there was a lovely rightnes to it all.

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