in North America) and The United Methodist Hymnal (American United Methodist Church). The British hymn translator Catherine Winkworth translated the first two verses of the hymn as "A Spotless Rose". In 1919 the British composer Herbert Howells set this text as a motet for SATB choir. Howells stated that: I sat down and wrote A Spotless Rose...after idly watching some shunting from the window of a cottage in Gloucester which overlooked the Midland Railway. In an upstairs room I looked out on iron railings and the main Bristol to Gloucester railway line, with shunting trucks bumping and banging. I wrote it and dedicated to my mother – it always moves me when I hear it, just as if it were written by someone else. Howells' carol is through-composed, switching between 7/8, 5/4 and 5/8 time signatures, unconventional for a carol of this era. The plangent final cadence ("On a cold, cold winter's night"), with its multiple suspensions is particularly celebrated. Howells' contemporary, Patrick Hadley reportedly told the composer "I should like, when my time comes, to pass away with that magical cadence". Winkworth's translation was again set to music in 2002 by the British composer and academic Sir Philip Ledger. A further English translation of the hymn, "Behold, a rose is growing", was written by the American Lutheran musician and writer, Harriet Reynolds Krauth Spaeth (1845–1925). Her four-verse version is often published with an additional 5th verse, translated by the American theologian John Caspar Mattes (1876–1948). Another Christmas hymn, "A Great and Mighty Wonder", is set to the same tune as this carol and may sometimes be confused with it. It is, however, a hymn by St. Germanus, (Μέγα καὶ παράδοξον θαῦμα), translated from Greek to English by John M. Neale in 1862. Versions of the German lyrics have been mixed with Neale's translation of a Greek hymn in subsequent versions such as Percy Dearmer's version in the 1931 Songs of Praise collection and Carols for Choirs (1961). Lyrics Music See also Es ist ein Ros entsprungen (Sandström) List of Christmas carols References External links List of all verses in German, from The Hymns and Carols of Christmas Free sheet music of "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming" for SATB, Cantorion.org MP3 of Sissel Kyrkjebø singing at a 2005 Christmas concert in Moscow, Internet Archive German-language Christmas carols Christmas in Germany Hymn tunes Marian hymns German Christian hymns 16th-century hymns