Program Notes
The Child Comes Every Winter, for SATB and piano (1999/2001), written with William Zinsser, is an arrangement of an earlier version for solo voice and piano written in the spring of 1999 at the Liguria Center for the Arts and Humanities in Bogliasco, Italy. As a solo it was to be performed at the end of a set of three American Christmas carols: “At Christmas Time” (December 19, 1917; in C Major), by Otto Luening and Hermann Hesse; “A Christmas Carol” (December 1894; in F Major), by Charles Ives; and “The Child Comes Every Winter” (in A Major). What is sadness in Otto Luening’s carol becomes poignancy in the song by Charles Ives, and hopefulness and sadness are contrasted in the lyrics and the music of “The Child Comes Every Winter.” It is dedicated to Ariana Tamar Goldsworthy.
Text
The child comes ev’ry winter
To tell us the amazing news:
Hope is born in Bethlehem.
The star comes ev’ry winter
To tell us where to find the boy.
Come, it says, to Bethlehem,
Come in peace and joy.
The three kings come ev’ry winter,
Far away they heard a call:
Wise men, wise enough to know
That the child is the wisest one of all.
Ev’ry year the same story,
But the story’s always new.
Always too good to be true.
(But it’s true).
Winter’s child is born for you.
The child comes ev’ry winter
To tell us the amazing news.
—William Zinsser
