Candlemas Carol
SSAA - Digital Sheet Music

Choral Choir (SSAA) - Level 4 - Digital Download

SKU: A0.505695

By Alan Wagstaff. By Alan Wagstaff. Arranged by Alan Wagstaff. Celtic,Folk,Holiday,Irish,Jewish,Traditional. Octavo. 23 pages. Alan Wagstaff #117353. Published by Alan Wagstaff (A0.505695).

This original song uses English folk idioms to retell a traditional snowdrop legend. The chorus is an English 'weather rhyme'. It has been set for choir (SSAA), piano, harp, fiddle, and flute. One of the Snowdrop’s folk names is ‘Eve’s Comforter’; another ‘Maid of February’. Candlemas Carol Maid of February, if you will, grace mantle, hearth, and windowsill. So let us all be of goodwill and gather round, together. When Winter holds the world in thrall, and ice and snow lie over all, the Maiden can at once recall, the coming Summer weather. If Candlemas is fair and bright, cold Winter will take a second bite. But if this day brings clouds and rain, Winter won’t return again. When Eve and Adam left Eden fair, the snow and ice lay ev’rywhere, which filled their hearts with bleak despair, for they could find no pardon. They glimpsed the flowers of paradise, beyond the earthly cold and ice, but they could not be perfect, twice, nor get back to the garden. If Candlemas is fair and bright, cold Winter will take a second bite. But if this day brings clouds and rain, Winter won’t return again. A teardrop fell from Eve’s sad eye, and froze upon the ground close by. An angel raised it up on high, and called for Heaven’s power. The ice became a snowdrop, then. Thus hope returned to Eve again. And all the people say: ‘Amen!’ in praise of Winter’s flower. If Candlemas is fair and bright, cold Winter will take a second bite. But if this day brings clouds and rain, Winter won’t return again. Alan Wagstaff The legend tells that, after Adam and Eve were banished from Eden’s perpetual summer, they wandered, despondently, into Earth’s freezing winter. Eve wept as the snow fell around them. Seeing her tears, an angel intervened. He caught a teardrop when it froze and breathed on it, turning it into a snowdrop. When the angel left more snowdrops sprang up. Thus, snowdrops in Winter, serve as a reminder, that better times will come around. The tale was often recalled at Candlemas: February 2nd.