Work of the Week - Lee Hoiby: The Christmas Tree

Lee Hoiby's latest holiday offering The Christmas Tree sees its world premiere on December 12 by the Cathedral Choral Society led by J. Reilly Lewis at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington D.C. The performance features The Christmas Tree in its version for organ and brass but the piece is also available for full symphony orchestra. Longtime-Hoiby collaborator Mark Shulgasser comments on the occasion:

“The Christmas Tree, Lee Hoiby's most recent composition, shows him still in full command of powerful choral sonorities and the handsome, outflung line he loves. Commissioned for the Washington National Cathedral's 2009 seasonal festivities, the carol again takes verses from the 17th-century mystical poet Richard Crashaw, also the source text of Hoiby's 1960 heralded cantata A Hymn of the Nativity. In four minutes the roof is rapturously raised, in the manner of Hoiby's much-performed Hymn to the New Age.”

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