for three-part upper voices (Trebles, SSS or SSA), organ & harp
Text: Various
Duration: c17 minutes'
Difficulty: 3/5
Use: Christmas

Composer’s note
I am indebted to Roger Sayer, the Reverend Robin-Griffith Jones, and Temple Music Fund for commissioning me to write this Christmas Suite. To be given the opportunity to choose the texts and set them to music has been ever so rewarding, and the magnificent musicians of London’s Temple Church gave this piece the best possible premiere.

The work opens with a prelude for organ and harp, as they both proclaim: ‘It’s Christmas! Merry Christmas!’ Their wordless but joyful interplay leads us straight into an announcement from an angelic host: ‘Hodie Christus natus est’. After this, the instruments and voices alike perform a round to celebrate Jesus’ birth. A lone treble subsequently invites us to witness a scene of ‘great solemnity’ as three shepherds blow On Oaten Pipes, looking up at God’s star, before a host of angels greet them with the Good News. The solo harpist depicts The Preparation of the Manger, a calm and peaceful moment as Mary and Joseph make the stable a suitable dwelling-place for the Christ-Child. Mary’s lullaby, Dormi, Jesu! (The Virgin’s Cradle Hymn) is interrupted by a group of merrymakers insisting that a banquet be prepared in Jesus’ honour, imploring the ‘maids get up and bake your pies’. The solo organist takes forth this message in The Preparation of the Feast. The initially discordant recitation of Divinium Mysterium shakes the listener from the previous deeply sincere atmosphere before revelling in the concordant arrangement. The next movement sees all the performers together again for (perhaps befittingly) the centrepiece of the work: The boar’s head in hand bring I, in which all triumph in the plentiful meal prepared in God’s Name. In writing Wartime Christmas, Sergeant Joyce Kilmer reminds us that even during this season, the earth can be ‘a dreary place’. Yet he optimistically declares that while ‘babies sleep on their mothers’ knees’, and wherever love and home exist, ‘there shall be Christmas Day’. To befit this hopeful confidence in the future, I wrote a Goodnight poem incorporating all the themes from the previous movements in the hope that the performers and the listeners are sent on their merry way to their Christmas celebrations and beyond.

Gareth Treseder
Welsh tenor and composer Gareth Treseder studied at the University of Bristol and Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. He has since been made an Honorary Associate of the RWCMD in recognition of his musical achievements. Gareth sings with many London-based ensembles including the Monteverdi Choir, with whom he performed at the Coronation of Their Majesties King Charles III and Queen Camilla. Gareth composes chiefly sacred choral works, several of which have been published by Boosey & Hawkes. Jesu, joy of our desiring, written for Sonoro’s Choral Inspirations 2 project, was workshopped across the UK during 2022 and 2023. Manchester Cathedral Choir commissioned Treseder’s Magnificat and Nunc dimittis, which was premiered as part of BBC Radio 3 Choral Evensong in May 2023. Upcoming premieres include Iudicium et iustitia, written for London’s Temple Church Choir, and Magnificat anima mea Dominum & Nunc dimittis servum tuum, commissioned by Professor Seiko Tanaka’s recorder ensemble based in Japan’s Studio Fontegara.