The Twelfth Day of Christmas

On this twelfth and final day of Christmas, singers from Convivium and the Parish Choir celebrate the arrival of the three kings with Shawn Kirchner’s fiery arrangement of the Epiphany hymn “Brightest and Best.”

The text for Brightest and Best was originally composed by the 19th-century Anglican hymnodist Reginald Heber, who served as Bishop of Calcutta. Alongside the famous Trinity Sunday hymn Holy, holy, holy, Brightest and best is perhaps his best-known work. Heber’s text is most often sung to an American folk melody from the 1835 collection Southern Harmony, one of the primary sources of shape-note and folk hymn melodies from the pre-Civil War United States. The contemporary American composer Shawn Kirchner offers a vibrant arrangement of this sturdy folk hymn, supported by a banjo-inspired piano accompaniment.