Sorrows Sleep Tonight - Wyn Pearson



Duration: 4'00"
Ensemble: SATB unaccompanied
Grading: Easy
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9790708116806 Full score £1.50
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Sorrows Sleep Tonight (Mary's lullaby) by Wyn Pearson and Luke Martens is a gently, powerfully reflective choral piece. Thematically and lyrically the piece centres around the image of the baby Jesus in the arms of his loving mother gently singing him to sleep.

A very familiar Christmas concept. However, it is inauthentic to focus entirely on the joy of the new birth when we, like Mary, know from the prophetic words of Simeon in Luke 2:35 that with the joy of her new baby, bringing salvation, there would also be for them both great suffering.

The powerful juxtaposition of the beautiful baby Jesus, light of the world, born in the shadow of the cross, gives us a stark reminder of his sacrifice and future glory. Mary's urging for the child to sleep and enjoy the peace of his infancy before he begins the work of suffering for the sins of mankind lends a melancholic beauty and hopeful sadness to the ebb and flow of this melodic arrangement.

This bitter sweet, omniscient lullaby brings together the inseparable themes of Christmas and Easter, urging us in a world fraught with suffering to grasp a simple moment of childlike peace.