In Bedlem, That Fayer Cyte - SATB and Organ

In Bedlem, that fayer cyte is an anonymous 15th century carol that intersperses the Latin opening lines of various psalms into an evocative account of Christ's birth. The extreme emotional contours - from casual narrative, to terror (the slaughter of the innocents), to a gentle image of Mary, to celebration - are given a musical through line in variants on the first verse's melody, with alternating emphasis on sparse and full choral textures. The psalm lines, intoned by a soloist, form a second-level narrative of an increasingly intense heavenly light over the terrestrial verses. Particularly poetic is the analogy of the sun shining through glass without shattering to the immaculate conception of Mary, sung tenderly by the men.