A Ceremony of Carols, by Benjamin Britten

Benjamin Britten’s “A Ceremony of Carols” is regularly heard around Christmas time, either in churches or performed by choirs and other music groups in secular surroundings. The complete work takes around 22 minutes to perform and is best heard in its entirety, although it is possible to extract individual carols and sing them out of context.

The work was written in very unusual circumstances. Benjamin Britten (1913-76) and his collaborator and lover, the tenor Peter Pears (1910-86), had spent three very successful years in North America while the Second World War was beginning in Europe. They decided to return to Great Britain in 1942 and undertook a long and hazardous sea voyage aboard a Swedish cargo vessel, the “Axel Johnson”. Although Sweden’s neutrality, and the Atlantic convoy system, would have afforded some protection against German U-boat attacks, the ship’s safety could never have been guaranteed.

During the voyage, which took nearly a month as the ship visited other ports before making the final crossing, Britten completed his “Hymn to St Celicia” and had hoped to finish another work (for the jazz musician  Benny Goodman) but this was confiscated by customs officials who feared that the score could contain a hidden code of some sort.

Britten therefore had time on his hands. When the ship docked at Halifax, Nova Scotia, he came across a book of early English poems (The English Galaxy of Shorter Poems), and these formed the text which inspired him to write “A Ceremony of Carols”. Britten had also become interested in writing for the harp and intended to write a harp concerto. It was therefore a natural progression to write a work for a small boys’ choir with harp accompaniment.

By the time the ship docked in England Britten had written settings for seven carols, the words of one of which (“Balulalow”) had been hand-written on the flyleaf of the copy that Britten had bought.

Britten later added two further carols and an arrangement of the plainchant “Hodie Christmas” that frames the piece as a processional and recessional. There is also an instrumental interlude for the harp on its own. Two carols are linked together such that they are normally numbered 4a and 4b. The pieces are therefore numbered from 1 to 11, although there are ten individual carols.

The first performance of the Ceremony was on 4^th December 1943, given by the Morriston Boys’ Choir at the Wigmore Hall, London. This choir later made the first recording of the piece. A version for a four-part choir was made in 1955 by Julius Harrison.

After the processional mentioned above, the choir sings the lively “Wolcum Yole” accompanied by plucked chords on the harp. “There is no Rose” is a gently melodic carol sung by the choir before a carol sung as a treble solo, namely “That yonge child”, which describes Mary singing a lullaby to Jesus. This leads naturally into “Balulalow” which is a lullaby, sung at first by the soloist and then the full choir. The next carol, “As dew in April” raises the tempo to allegro, which is preparation for the lively presto of “This little babe”.

After a short harp solo, the carols resume with “In freezing winter night”, with its starkly atmospheric harmonies that would make one shiver even on the hottest day, followed naturally by a carol that takes the listener out of winter and into spring. “Spring carol” gives thanks to God for the blessings of spring and makes no mention of Christmas at all. The ceremony reaches a climax with “Deo Gracias” in which the voices finally tumble over each other like a peal of bells as they sing words that link the Nativity to the Fall of Man – “And all was for an appil, An appil that he tok, As clerkès finden written in their book”. The recessional to “Hodie Christmas” concludes the Ceremony.

Many people would say that they find Benjamin Britten’s music challenging, but he was a composer who was adept in many different fields and styles and much of what he wrote is extremely easy on the ear of even the most unsophisticated listener, even when the music presents considerable challenges to the performers. That is certainly the case with “A Ceremony of Carols” which takes considerable skill and talent to perform well but, when this is achieved, offers an experience of real pleasure and spiritual uplift.

© John Welford