Love Came Down at Christmas

Peter Pindar Stearns’s “Love Came Down at Christmas” is an attractive and very approachable setting, with memorable, lyrical melodies. Of the three verses, the first is for sopranos only, the second sees the melody first appearing in the tenor line, accompanied by upper voices, and then returning to the soprano with four-part harmony for the rest of the verse. The third verse begins unaccompanied, the organ joining the choir gently in the middle of the verse. A charming and memorable carol, suitable for most four part choirs.
Julian Elloway, Church Music Quarterly
November 2005

This slow setting of the famous Christina Rossetti text opens with the sopranos singing the first verse. That melody is used in the other two verses, first in the tenors with neutral singing in the other sections, then in a four-part version, everyone singing the text, with the melody again in the soprano section. The keyboard part is on two staves and is accompanimental. This gentle, queit setting is not difficult, and has comfortable vocal ranges in all sections.
The Diapason
October 2010