Carol for King’s
Broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 160 million, the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College, Cambridge, is perhaps the most famous carol service in the world. The candlelit chapel with its glorious vaulted ceiling and fine acoustic makes the perfect setting.
Every year since 1983, the Director of Music has commissioned a new carol to be sung at the service. in 2024 Bill was invited to compose a new piece.
Three Points of Light, is a setting of a poem by Peter Cairns, a former Choral Scholar at King’s.
Bill writes :
“Three Points of Light: the light of the star, the light of the shepherd’s fire, and the light in the stable. The poem conjures a compelling rural scene and we are drawn in to the story by these elements; lights which, together, form the Light of the World.
The music aims to reflect the atmosphere of that scene: the cold, the stillness, the mystery, and the joy.’
The service was broadcast live on Christmas Eve on BBC Radio and the BBC World Service.
The score of Three Points of Light is available to purchase from Carus Verlag
Three Points of Light
Three points of light
On one cold night:
High in the sky
A gleaming star;
The shepherds gaze
Into their fire;
The inn’s glow shows
Where wonders are.
The gleaming star
Becomes a choir
Of angels praising
God, with Word
That at that hour,
In that same inn,
A King is born
Called Christ the Lord.
Amazed, the shepherds
Gaze at the inn,
They rush to the scene,
To the Babe in the Straw
Where Mary and Joseph
Greet their guests
Whose humble gifts
Bedeck the floor.
Three points of light:
The gleaming star,
The shepherds’ fire,
The glow from the inn:
All part of a scene
Which changed our lore,
And changed our lives
For evermore.
Peter Cairns
(reproduced by kind permission of the author and Carus-Verlag, Stuttgart)
GRAYSTON IVES