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 15th 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 17th
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 19th and early
20th 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 19th 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 16th 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
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