The Bells

A setting of the first verse of Edgar Allen Poe's poem, The Bells, for this joyful, upbeat carol for TTBarB:

Hear the sledges with the bells—
                 Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
        How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
           In the icy air of night!
        While the stars that oversprinkle
        All the heavens, seem to twinkle
           With a crystalline delight;
         Keeping time, time, time,
         In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinabulation that so musically wells
       From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
               Bells, bells, bells—
  From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

It was commissioned by the Sunday Boys, a lower voice choir, and premiered by them in Manchester Cathedral on December 2nd, 2022.