While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night
The fourth carol on our new disc ‘I Saw Three Ships’ is another enduring favourite - ‘While Shepherds Watched’. This carol was originally called ‘Winchester Old’ and appears in Este’s Psalter of 1592 but the words weren’t added until Irish poet Nahum Tate (who was poet laureate) wrote them - first making an appearance in the 1700 supplement to the ‘New Version of the Psalms of David’ published in 1696.
When I began arranging this carol for string quartet, a melody occurred to me which seemed to compliment the existing tune very nicely. When a carol has such a distinctive melody as ‘While Shepherds Watched’, it isn’t necessary to become too elaborate with a string arrangement as it’s important to keep the character of the tune - without too much embellishment. Once I had the two melodies, all the Christmas carol then required was sympathetic string harmonies which weaved around the tune. Later on in the arrangement, the tune is joined by a very springy upward bass line (played by the cello) and lightly pulsating inner parts which gives the piece real buoyancy.
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