Poston: Three carols

Day 359

Elizabeth Poston: Three carols

Praise our Lord

Bethlehem

The Boar’s Head Carol

St Albans Cathedral Choir

Tom Winpenny

Elizabeth Poston has a secure place in musical history as the composer of the lovely carol Jesus Christ the Apple Tree. We sang it at school when it was still a fairly new piece (it was written for the King’s College Festival of 9 Lessons and Carols in 1967) and it has been a favourite of mine ever since. Its appeal lies in its simplicity, its ‘white note’ harmony and the memorable leap to the top G in the last line. 

It probably took her only a couple of hours to write and yet it has overshadowed everything else she wrote in a long life as a working musician. Indeed one study of her work is entitled Beyond the Apple Tree. It must have been a bitter sweet experience to have written one tiny peice which achieved musical immortality.

So on Christmas Day I was keen to hear some of her other carols. The first two are written in memory of Peter Warlock. Praise the Lord has an organ accompaniment and some attractive rhythmic counterpoint - Bethlehem is a simpler piece for unaccompanied choir - it was rather beautiful. Piston’s arrangement of the Boar’s Head Carol was, I thought, rather less successful. It was over elaborate and was perhaps trying to be too clever.  

So I am pleased to have explored beyond the apple tree but it may come as no surprise that I came back to it after these three carols. Posterity isn’t always wrong. That simple carol has a magic all of its own.