The English composer Gustav Holst (1874-1934) set the words of Christina Rosetti’s poem In the Bleak Midwinter in a hymn-like version which was published as Cranham in the English Hymnal in 1906. There have been other settings of the words, and the words themselves featured as a mantra in the TV programme Peaky Blinders. However, Holst’s simple version retains the sense of austere beauty and afforded more opportunity to take a slightly lateral look at it.
