I Saw a Sweet and Seemly Sight (mixed choir)

In this piece I have used a melody from the 15th century as my main compositional element. I started improvising with the main theme in my mind and ended up rocking two chords back and forth, as a lullaby, all though interrupting the 9/8 (3/4) pattern with bars of 12/8 (4/4) to create kind of a strange, imprecise feel. For me, the image described in the lyrics, a mother singing her newborn baby to sleep, became a sad story, considering that she is a refugee having to deliver her baby in a stable. The ending features a solo humming. A sad image of Mary singing for her baby, trying to bring some comfort to him in the only way she can. The original version of this piece was commissioned by the Swedish male voice ensemble Svanholm Singers and their conductor Sofia Söderberg in 2019, and premiered by the same group on 6 December 2019 in Gustav Adolfs kyrka, Helsingborg, Sweden. An adaptation for mixed voices was created in 2022 and premiered by the Helsingborgs Kammarkör and their conductor Sverker Zadig on 30 November 2022 in S:ta Maria Kyrka, Helsingborg, Sweden.

Henrik Dahlgren