POTD: March 24th

Another poem from Audlem Printers' calendar:

"In the Bleak Midwinter"

A Christmas carol based on a poem by the English poet Christina Rossetti. The poem was published, under the title "A Christmas Carol", in the January 1872 issue of Scribner's Monthly.

The poem first appeared set to music in The English Hymnal in 1906 with a setting by Gustav Holst.

Harold Darke's anthem setting of 1911 is more complex and was named the best Christmas carol in a poll of some of the world's leading choirmasters and choral experts in 2008.

Darke was born in Highbury, London the youngest son of Samuel Darke & Arundel Bourne and attended Dame Alice Owen's School. While in the RAF he married a violinist, Dora Garland, (the first woman to lead the Queen's Hall Orchestra) at St Michaels, Cornhill on 25 July 1918.

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