Choral - Lower Voices Archives - Patrick Hawes https://www.patrickhawes.com/category/music-catalogue/choral-lower-voices/ Tue, 13 May 2025 10:00:27 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 Joseph’s Carol https://www.patrickhawes.com/2016/11/24/josephs-carol/ Thu, 24 Nov 2016 07:37:49 +0000 https://www.patrickhawes.com/?p=1848 Duration: 4 minutes
Chorus: TTBB
Instrumentation: Organ

The post Joseph’s Carol appeared first on Patrick Hawes.

]]>

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.

Joseph’s Carol uses purely male voices and touches of plainsong in its evocation of the total submission to God of this extraordinarily selfless man.

DURATION
4 minutes

CHORUS
TTBB

INSTRUMENTATION
Organ

YEAR OF COMPOSITION
2006

PUBLISHER
Novello

SHEET MUSIC

View Score


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 –   )

The post Joseph’s Carol appeared first on Patrick Hawes.

]]>