VocalEssence Chorus & Ensemble Singers, Twin Cities Bronze

World Premiere - Carol Contest Winner; “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” is a poem about faith and optimism through times of public and private catastrophe. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote “Christmas Bells” at the height of the Civil War, when the outcome of that conflict was still uncertain.

A few weeks before, the poet had received word that his son Charles had been wounded in the Battle of New Hope Church in Virginia, and had brought him home to Cambridge to recover. It was with the mixed emotions born of horror at the war and gratitude for his son’s survival that he penned the poem, which was first published in 1865.

The handbell part makes use of a technique unique to the instrument, the “tower swing,” in which the ringer swings the bells down, back, and up over the course of three beats, imitating the swinging of tower bells with the accompanying Doppler effect as the ringing bell moves through the air. It is not meant to be particularly melodic, but evocative of the bells of a valley full of village churches clangorously announcing a day of celebration.

—J. David Moore