In The Bleak Midwinter for Men (TTBB, oboe, and strings) By Michael John Trotta

 

A new setting of a traditional poem, this work juxtaposes simple melodic beauty with a wider harmonic palette in the interior sections. These interior sections can be performed with the optional piano part, or a cappella. The use of the oboe, accents melodic fragments in a subtle imitation of the melodic line introduced by the voices. 

 

Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) was an English poet whose life was marred with bouts of depression and related illness.  Emerging from these challenges, her writing is recognized as having strong themes of religious devotion and also provides social commentary various themes associated with the Victorian Era.  Her poem, In the Bleak Midwinter, on which this work is based, became widely known when it was set by Gustav Holst in 1906 as a Christmas Carol in the English Hymnal, was further popularized in the setting by Harold Edwin Darke.