{Music Lessons for Kids} In The Bleak Midwinter // Holst

Want to incorporate classical music appreciation as a weekly component in your homeschool schedule? Come check out my kid-friendly, easy-on-the-parents Music Curriculum. You can try a free sample lesson HERE.

We are continuing to work through the January playlist. Check out previous lessons on the Skater’s Waltz, the Antarctic Symphony, the Winterlust Polka, and The Snow Maiden Suite. 

Y’all, this tune. This wistful, melancholy, lilting little tune.

The music was written by Gustav Holst (most famous for The Planets) to be paired with a poem from English writer Christina Rossetti. Over the years, In the Bleak Midwinter has become a moderately popular Christmas Carol. I say moderately, because I bet a lot of you don’t know it very well.

To me it has never sounded quite “happy” enough for Christmas. All the Christmas feels come more from carols like Joy to the World or Hark the Herald Angels Sing. When I introduced the January playlist, I mentioned that I included this tune for January because I was afraid it might not make the cut against more well known music for December. Plus, the tune just feels more January to me, in those melancholy days when the holidays are long gone and spring is nowhere near. 

But it’s so beautiful! And atmospheric. It makes me want to curl up with a cup of tea.

I also included it on this month’s playlist because sometimes we need music in our lives that does nothing but give us a quiet place. A short moment in time to rest and just be. 

Today I have not so much a lesson for you as an invitation to rest. Take a moment and just be with this music. Make yourself a cup of tea, sit quietly, and just breathe. And find space for your kids to do the same. Don’t our kids just need more of that?

I’ve been reading this book, and it is resonating with me on so many levels. I will leave you with this quote:

“…I know that in the same way I’ve always believed God’s Spirit dwells deeply in this world, it also dwells deeply in me. I’ve known that, cognitively, but my life spoke otherwise. Now I know that the best thing I can offer to this world is not my force or energy, but a well-tended spirit…”

Shauna Niequist