Some classic Christmas carols

It is essential to define what is meant by a Christmas carol, because the term has been misused so often that virtually any piece of sung music associated with Christmas could be called a carol.

A carol must be religious in content, and celebratory. It is also usually joyful in tone, although this is not always the case (e.g. the Coventry Carol below). It has become common practice for any hymn sung at Christmas time to be called a carol, but that is not particularly appropriate, as a hymn is defined as being suitable for singing by a congregation in church, and that is certainly not true of all carols.

If we take the term “carol” to exclude all non-religious Christmas songs, as well as all hymns that are designed primarily for congregational singing, there are still many “classic” carols that choirs will sing at Christmas, as will carol-singers going from door to door. Here are a few examples:

The Coventry Carol

This dates from the 15^th century and was part of the Coventry cycle of mystery plays . A series of short plays on Biblical themes, each presented by a merchant’s guild or other local group, would be performed in sequence to the townspeople, possibly staged on wagons that would be drawn from place to place so that the audience would see each play as it came along and the actors would give as many performances as there were places where the audiences had gathered.

Only two Coventry plays have survived, one being the Nativity play of the Shearmen and Tailors, of which the carol was part. It concerns the “Massacre of the Innocents” by the soldiers of King Herod after the birth of Jesus. The carol is sung by the women of Bethlehem in the play, just before the soldiers enter. It is partly a lullaby, with the refrain “Lully lulla, thou little tiny child, by by lully lullay” and partly a lament for the children who are about to die: “That woe is me, Poor child for thee!” It can therefore be seen as foreseeing the death of Christ as well as celebrating his birth and commenting on the immediate event of the massacre.

The tune normally sung to the carol is based on one that dates back to 1591.

We Wish You a Merry Christmas

This is the carol most often performed on British doorsteps! It is a traditional carol from the West of England, and it breaks the rule about carols being religious, because it quite plainly is not. Most modern carol singers get as far as “Good tidings we bring , to you and your kin, We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year” and then bash on the door to demand money. However, the full version is an extended threat, with “figgy pudding” being very much on the carollers’ minds.

Having sung “Now bring us some figgy pudding, And bring some out here” in the second verse, and explaining that “We all like figgy pudding” in the third, the singers make their demand explicit in the final verse with the rousing chorus of “We won’t go till we’ve got some, So bring some out here!”

The Sussex Carol

This carol appears to go back to at least the 17^th century, but is known today thanks to the efforts of Cecil Sharp and Ralph Vaughan Williams, who were both interested in collecting English folk songs that they heard sung by rural villagers in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Cecil Sharp collected this carol from Gloucestershire, but Vaughan Williams heard it sung in a village near Horsham in Sussex, which is why it has the title of the Sussex Carol. Vaughan Williams included it in his “Fantasia on Christmas Carols” which was first performed at the Three Choirs Festival in 1912, and it was later arranged by David Willcocks for the annual Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at King’s College, Cambridge, where it is regularly performed to this day.

It is a bright, lively carol that has a simple tune and easily memorised words, beginning: “On Christmas night all Christians sing, To hear the news the angels bring, News of great joy, news of great mirth, News of our merciful King’s birth.” Whatever arrangement is sung, the four short verses, ending with “Glory to God and peace to men, Now and for evermore. Amen” do not take long to sing, but it makes an excellent impression when sung well, and certainly counts as a classic English carol.

The Three Kings

This 19^th century carol has become a “standard” with choirs that boast a decent tenor or baritone soloist. It was composed by Peter Cornelius (1824-74), a German composer of lieder and operas who was a friend of Wagner and Liszt. However, the carol in question is his only piece that is heard regularly today, in translation and usually in the arrangement by Ivor Atkins.

The most unusual feature of the carol, which, not surprisingly, tells the story of the visit of the Magi to the birthplace of Jesus at Bethlehem, is the fact that you get two carols for the price of one. The soloist sings two verses to the same tune, giving the basic story, followed by an extended conclusion, to a different tune and with varied rhythm, that exhorts the hearer to also travel with the Kings and “offer thy heart”.

However, at the same time that the soloist is singing the above, a four-part choir sings a stately chorale to a different tune and with different words. Their carol begins “How brightly shines the morning star, With grace and truth from heaven afar” and ends with “Inly feeds us, rightly leads us, life bestowing. Praise, o praise such love o’erflowing”. It therefore complements the words being sung by the soloist as well as dovetailing perfectly with the music as a piece of counterpoint to a different rhythm.

As described, it may sound as though it would be difficult for an average church choir to perform, but that is not the case. As long as everyone keeps the beat perfectly, and the dynamics of the choir do not overpower the soloist, who should stand at some distance from the choir, it should work very well. When sung as intended, The Three Kings is extremely effective.

Ding Dong Merrily on High

This carol ticks all the boxes as a classic carol, and is part of the Christmas repertoire of just about every church choir.

The words are by George Ratcliffe Woodward (1848-1934), an Anglican priest who had a passion for bell-ringing as well as poetry.  He had a very good ear for music and sometimes produced tunes for his own words, but more often left this to his younger friend, the Irish composer Charles Wood (1866-1926). They collaborated on a number of carols, for all seasons, and produced three books of them. Wood often adapted traditional tunes for use as carols, and the tune of “Ding Dong Merrily” is one such, having been a 16^th century French tune.

It is a carol all about bells, comprising three short verses and a “peal” of a chorus to the words “Gloria, Hosanna in excelsis” with the different voices tumbling over each other just as church bells would do. The chorus is repeated, being sung once fortissimo and once piano; the dynamics are reversed for the final chorus so that the carol ends on a blast of sound.

There is no Christmas carol that is brighter or more joyful, making “Ding Dong Merrily” about as classic as you can get!

© John Welford

The British National Anthem

The British national anthem was the first in the world to be adopted as such, with every other country in the world subsequently following suit, sometimes even using the same tune. Like many British institutions it was a matter of evolution rather than deliberate creation, coming about almost by accident.

  

The historical background

It was first heard in anything like its current form in September 1745 at Drury Lane Theatre in London, where it was enthusiastically received and encored several times. Its use then spread to other theatres and was soon used on occasions when the King was present or some expression of patriotism was called for.

These were troublesome times. The British monarchy, under King George II, was threatened by an uprising led by “Bonnie Prince Charlie”, the grandson of King James II who had been deposed in 1688. Although King George was not universally popular and was himself a foreigner in the eyes of most of his British subjects, the prospect of a revolution led by a Catholic prince was even less welcome, and the English (as opposed to the Scottish) people were keen to rally behind their Hanoverian king.

At the time of the first performance of “God Save the King”, Charles Edward Stuart’s army of Highlanders had reached Edinburgh and was gathering support as it prepared to venture south into England. It was to advance as far as Derby, in the English Midlands, by early December, but then turned back when the “Young Pretender’s” supporters got cold feet.

The patriotic song was therefore written at a time of great national distress, with its words focussed on the person of the King who stood in opposition to the threat from the North. The author of the words is unknown, as is the composer of the tune, although it is possible that Dr Thomas Arne arranged it for its original performance. Neither the words nor the music were completely original, and there is evidence that versions of both were in use long before 1745. One ironic possibility, given its use in 1745, is that the tune was based on an old Scottish carol.

The text

The original first verse was as follows:

God save our noble King!

God save Great George our King!

God save the King!

Send him victorious,

Happy and glorious,

Long to reign over us,

God save the King.

(The first two lines have since been changed to meet later circumstances, to:

           

God save our gracious King/Queen

            Long live our noble King/Queen)

Some of the words, including “God save the King” and “long to reign over us” can be traced back to common use in the 16^th century, and versions of the song had also been sung in praise of previous monarchs, including James II. The 1745 version, however, had a specific aim in mind, which was to offer a prayer for the safety of the King, and hence the nation, from a very present threat.

An ironic anthem

It is somewhat ironic that this should have become the national anthem of the whole of Great Britain, which it did from the early 1800s as a matter of general acceptance rather than as the result of any decree or law. The irony lies in the fact that it was written to support one side of what was, in effect, a civil war. Indeed, as new verses were written to supplement the original one, some were so partisan and specific as to be completely unacceptable within a British anthem. For example:

Lord, grant that Marshal Wade,

May by thy mighty aid,

Victory bring.

May he sedition hush,

and like a torrent rush,

Rebellious Scots to crush,

God save the King.

Needless to say, this verse is not used today, even in the fullest version of the anthem, and it was never part of the “official” version. Even so, the anthem is much less popular in the non-English parts of Great Britain, with the Welsh and Scots being content to express their Welshness and Scottishness with their own anthems.

The saving grace of “God Save the Queen” (which it has been since 1952 and was also during the reign of Queen Victoria) as a national anthem for the whole country is that it is a prayer for the safety of the monarch and makes no mention of the country in any of the verses. It can therefore be sung in any part of the country that recognises the Queen as monarch, and that is something that also applies to countries of the British Commonwealth that are independent but still regard the Queen as their figurative head of government.

Some strange features of the National Anthem

As mentioned above, Wales and Scotland have their own anthems, which are used at such events as sporting events between the individual countries of Great Britain, but England as such does not have one, leading to the somewhat bizarre consequence of England teams having to use the national anthem for the whole country when playing other parts of the same country!

It is usual for only one verse of God Save the Queen to be played, but when an extended version is required the third “official” verse is commonly preferred to the second, which includes the lines:

Scatter her enemies

And make them fall.

Confound their politics

Frustrate their knavish tricks

The preferred third verse is much more politically correct:

Thy choicest gifts in store

On her be pleased to pour

Long may she reign.

May she defend our laws

And ever give us cause

To sing with heart and voice,

God Save the Queen.

 The British national anthem is unusual in being neither a paean of praise about the country in question nor, in its current version, a reference to military power, with the sole exception of the line “Send her victorious”. It could be said that it is only a national anthem because the monarch is the titular head of the nation; should the country ever become a republic the national anthem would clearly have to be changed.

It is also of interest that the tune used for God Save the Queen is by no means limited to the United Kingdom. Americans will recognise it as “My Country Tis of Thee” and it is still used for the national anthem of Liechtenstein (Switzerland also used the tune until 1961). On the rare occasions when an English football team plays Liechtenstein, the same tune is played twice!

Another odd feature of this national anthem is that the head of state never sings it. On occasions when the Queen is present everyone will stand to attention (no heart-crossing here!) and sing the anthem, including other members of the royal family, but the Queen herself stays tight-lipped and silent. Given the lyrics, how could she do otherwise?

Whether the citizens of Great Britain and Northern Ireland like it or not, they are probably stuck with God Save the Queen for the foreseeable future, the only likely change being the switch back to “King” when the next monarch takes over.

© John Welford