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The Burning Babe
1995
SATB chorus
organ
snare drum
strings [solo strings or string section]
duration 5'
commissioned by The Marsh Chapel Chorus
first performance:
The Marsh Chapel Chorus, cond. Julian Wachner
Marsh Chapel, Boston University / February 24, 1996
SCORE
PROGRAM NOTE
Robert Southwell's strange poem relates a mystical vision full of alarming contraries and jolts—sudden scorching heat in the middle of winter, a baby shedding floods of tears speaking as an adult, purification through agonizing sacrifice. The music too is based on the juxtaposition of opposites. The sung music is syllabic and measured, consisting of smooth lines, while the trumpets have spiky, icy little motifs–sometimes shared with sul ponticello and pizzicato strings–alternating with held notes which crescendo out of nowhere. The keyboard's role is largely to hold small clusters as a reminder of the cold, featureless landscape. Throughout, a distant muffled snare drum adds a continuous shudder.
TEXT
The Burning Babe
As I in hoary winter's night stood shivering in the snow,
Surprised I was with sudden heat which made my heart to glow;
And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near,
A pretty Babe all burning bright did in the air appear;
Who scorched with excessive heat, such floods of tears did shed,
As though his floods should quench his flames which with his tears were fed.
“Alas!” quoth he, “but newly born in fiery heats I fry,
Yet none approach to warm their hearts or feel my fire but I.
My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns;
Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns;
The fuel justice layeth on, and mercy blows the coals;
The metal in this furnace wrought are men's defiled souls:
For which, as now on fire I am to work them to their good,
So will I melt into a bath to wash them in my blood.”
With this he vanished out of sight and swiftly shrunk away,
And straight I called unto mind that it was Christmas day.
Robert Southwell (1561–1595)