Brightest and Best

Appalachian Carols
Appalachian Carols is a tribute to the musical legacy of Jean Ritchie (1922-2015), perhaps the best known and most respected singer of traditional ballads in the United States. The youngest daughter of one of the most famous American ballad-singing families—the Ritchie family of Perry County, Kentucky—Jean Ritchie is often referred to as the “Mother of Folk.” Music had come to her by tradition, and she maintained an impeccable but down-to-earth authenticity throughout her storied career.

The five movements of Appalachian Carols are drawn from Ritchie’s repertoire for the Christmas season. I began by transcribing the melodies from Ritchie’s recordings to capture her unique interpretations as closely as possible. Adding choral harmonies to the original melodies, I tried to stay true to the essence of the tunes as she performed them. Throughout the five movements of Appalachian Carols, echoes and reverberations of the Appalachian folk style abound: unison singing, the use of drones, open sonorities evoking the mountain dulcimer, and allusions to the three-part vocal harmony of 19th-century American tunebooks. The resulting work is a meditation on the interweaving themes of winter, Christmas, family, music, and nature.

Brightest and Best
This setting of Reginald Heber’s well-known hymn text features what Jean termed the “old mountain tune,” sung by the Ritchie family for generations. She fondly recalled a childhood memory of her grandmother singing Brightest and Best on Twelfth Night, sitting bowed over the fire on “Old Christmas” Eve.

Hail the blest morn when the great Mediator,
Down from the regions of glory descends.
Shepherds, go worship the babe in the manger,
Lo! for a guard the bright angels attend.

Refrain:
Brightest and best of the songs of the morning,
Dawn on our darkness and lend us thine aid;
Star of the east, the horizon adorning,
Guide where our infant Redeemer is laid.

Cold on his cradle the dew-drops are shining,
Low lies his head with the beast of the stall;
Angels adore him in slumber reclining,
Maker and monarch and savior of all.

Refrain

Say, shall we yield him, in costly devotion,
Odors of Edom and offerings divine?
Gems of the mountain and pearls of the ocean,
Myrrh from the forest and gold from the mine?

Refrain

Vainly we offer each ample oblation,
Vainly with gifts would his favor secure;
Richer by far is the heart’s adoration,
Dearer to God are the prayers of the poor.

Refrain