To help my spirits stay upbeat during the first holiday season without my mother, I ordered a 10-CD set of Mendelssohn’s complete Sacred Choral Works (Geistliches Chorwerk) on the Carus label. Hurray! ---the second CD had a Christmas cantata with which I was unfamiliar. “Von Himmel Hoch” is from 1831 and is just sixteen minutes long. Some of the words:
From heav’n on high I come to you:
I bring you joyful news and true.
The joyful news I bring this day
I now shall sing and I shall say.
For you this day a child is born,
Born of a virgin pure and fine.
This beautiful and winsome boy
Shall be your gladness and your joy.
He is the Christ, our blessed Lord,
And he will keep you from all want.
Your King and Savior he shall be,
and from transgression make you free.
He brings you all the blessedness
That God will give you in his grace...
And if the world were great indeed,
Adorned with precious stones and gold,
It still would seem too small to be
A cradle fit to give to thee.
And therefore, Lord, it pleases thee
To manifest this truth to me:
All worldly honor, power, and wealth
For thee are of no help or worth.
Praise God upon his heav’nly throne,
Who sends to us his only Son.
The angels greet us with good cheer
And sing us all a bright new year.
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