Joseph’s Carol
COMPOSER’S NOTE
I wrote this work whilst I was still a teacher at Charterhouse for Mark Blatchly and the Charterhouse Special Choir and then, more recently, it was recorded by the superb Voce Chamber Choir of Connecticut.
DURATION
4 minutes
CHORUS
TTBB
INSTRUMENTATION
Organ
YEAR OF COMPOSITION
2006
PUBLISHER
Novello
SHEET MUSIC
Available from
JW Pepper
Music Room
Music Shop Europe
O child that lies soft-
sleeping in my arms,
I shall keep you safe
from all that harms.
I know that your life
did not spring from mine;
and I know that
all I am is thine.
My craft is hewing,
joining, making good;
and now my end is
shaped and made by God.
A simple carpenter
my chosen trade;
and now my life is fixed
by powers that all things made.
Your being fulfills
a promise borne of dreams;
both innocence and fear
shall make my destiny.
By starlit night
your midwife I have been.
Your blood on my hands
the offering seals.
O child that lies soft-
sleeping in my arms,
I shall keep you safe
from all that harms.
I know that your life
did not spring from mine;
and I know that
all I am is thine.
Libretto: Andrew Hawes (1954 – )
