1st Choir.—“Rush out from every cottage door,
’Tis brave and bracing weather;
A madder throng ne’er met before,
Than those which now have come together.”
This double number, which is very effective, is followed by a soprano recitative and romance (“Welcome, blest Season”), tender and yet joyous in character, which celebrates the delight of friendly reunions at Christmas tide, and the pleasure with which those long absent seek “the old familiar door.” In the next number, an old English carol (“A Blessing on this noble House and all who in it dwell”), Christmas is fairly introduced. It is sung first in unison by full chorus, then changes to harmony, in which one choir retains the melody, and closes with a new subject for orchestral treatment, the united choirs singing the carol. Christmas would not be complete without its story; and this we have in the next number for contralto solo and chorus, entitled “A Christmas Tale.” It is preceded by recitative, written in the old English style, and each verse closes with a refrain, first sung as a solo, and then repeated in full harmony by the chorus:—
“A bleak and kindless morning had broke on Althenay,
Where shunning Danish foemen the good King Alfred lay;
‘In search of food our hunters departed long ago,
I fear that they have perished, embedded in the snow.’
While thus he sadly muses, an aged man he sees,