Ruth Leon recommends… In The Bleak Midwinter – Wigmore Hall

In The Bleak Midwinter – Wigmore Hall

Why is this the world’s most popular Christmas carol? Its message (thanks to Christina Rosetti) is miserable and, what’s more, inaccurate. Assuming that Jesus was in fact born in December, and there’s no contemporary proof of that, it was December in Bethlehem and If you’ve been there in December (I have) you will know that there’s a chance of rain but never is it bleak nor, for that matter, does Bethlehem have a bleak mid-winter. Chances are that the poor pregnant teenager got saddle-sores from the donkey ride because it was too hot to undertake such an uncomfortable journey in that climate and in her condition.

But still, here it is, Christina Rossetti’s fantasy that the baby was born in the bleak mid-winter in a country that doesn’t have one. This version of the famous carol in the setting by Gustave Holst is played without its silly poem by the excellent London Central Brass in this instrumental arrangement by its trombonist Rhydian Tiddy and comes to us as the Christmas card from my beloved Wigmore Hall. Yes, I thought it was an odd choice too.

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