My approach to arranging this carol, as well as the other carols in Nordic Christmas, was to look at the text (originally in Danish by Nikolai Grundtvig, 1783–1872) and its background to see if there are new meanings hidden in the material. Perhaps there are circumstances around its creation or messages the original authors were trying to say that somehow get lost in the way they are interpreted today. Lovely is the dark blue sky is usually performed as a lustrous up-tempo carol, but thinking of...