Like most performing and recording groups in the United States, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir has produced several albums (what we old fogies got instead of CDs) of Christmas music. I recall fondly one which included a range of international and semi-classical works. As I recall one of the orchestral arrangers also arranged for Benny Goodman.

One of the songs on one of those albums caught my interest when I was about 30. I listened carefully until I was able to make out the words, and in the process I picked up the music as well. The words are from an old Russian fable about the child Jesus. While the story almost certainly didn't happen, it does tell us much about the character of the God-man whose birth we pretend to celebrate around Christmas.

Peter Illyich Tchaikovsky wrote the music; a simple choral harmony given great power by a master. The harmony may not exactly match what he wrote, but it's close. I picked the instruments. I reproduce the words below:

    When Jesus was a little child,
      He made a garden in the wild.
    There grew a rose bush 'neath his care,
      Yielding a garland for his hair.

    It blossomed full upon a day,
      When graceless children passed that way.
    They tore the rose bush from its bed,
      Stripped all its leaves and blossoms red.

    "Whence wilt thou mold thy garland fair?"
      Their taunting voices smote the air.
    "Leave but for me the naked thorns,"
      The Christ replied, yet without scorn.

    Then of the thorns all sharp and bare,
      They bound a garland o'er his hair.
    See where as red as roses grow,
      Great drops of blood bedew his brow,
        bedew his brow.


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