Blake – Hallelujah

While this is not a Christmas album, per se, the choral arrangements make the release of this at holiday time make sense. Hallelujah, the old song by Leonard Cohen, is surrounded by angels here, despite (or perhaps because of) its thoughtful questioning of "god above". The shout-out tunes also work well as holiday music. Vide Cor Meum (“I am in peace my heart”) is performed in the original latin written for the movie Hannibal, based on a sonnet by Dante. In The Bleak Midwinter, the poem by Christina Rosetti, speaks eloquently of the birth of Jesus:

Our God, heaven cannot hold him, nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away when he comes to reign;
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
The Lord God incarnate, Jesus Christ

The final verse is one we all ponder. What gift can I bring to my Savior? Of course Christina provides the answer of the catechism, one I’ve never found a way to improve upon: “Give my heart”. Blake