Noel Nouvelet
The final track on our album It Came Upon The Midnight Clear and other carols is the ancient French piece, ‘Noel Nouvelet’. Like many traditional melodies it has a complicated history that means there are a variety of sources, largely inconsistent. This in no way detracts from the majestic power of this melody which made it [...]
Don Oiche Ud I Mbeithil
This ancient Irish carol is loosely translated from its original Gaelic as ‘That Night in Bethlehem’. The words tell the nativity story - speaking of the events on the night of Jesus’s birth and end with a message of peace from the angels. In Ireland, there remains a tradition of leaving a lit candle in [...]
The Sans Day Carol
This carol is another instance of a melody (which may have been in existence for many centuries) being collected and notated and thereafter becoming well known across the world. It owes it’s name to the Cornish village of St. Day (pronounced in Cornish as Sans Day) which itself was named after a Breton Saint. The [...]
To Drive The Cold Winter Away…
This wonderfully evocative melody is also known as ‘In Praise of Christmas’ or ‘The Praise of Christmas’. A version of this song dating from the early 17th century has the interesting title of ’A Pleasant Country New Ditty: Merrily Shewing How to Drive the Cold Winter Away’. The song is also included in that classic collection of folk [...]
Carol of the Bells
This increasingly popular carol was written by a Ukranian composer called Mykola Leontovych in 1904 - like many carols, it has it’s origins in a traditional folk melody. The lyrics ‘Ring Christmas bells’ etc were added in 1947 and although Leontovych himself was shot dead in 1921, this piece has grown in worldwide popularity to [...]
The Shepherds’ Farewell
The full title of Hector Berlioz’s ’The Shepherds’ Farewell’ is ‘L’Adieu des Bergers a la Sainte Famille’ (’The Shepherds Bid Farewell to the Holy Family’). It is from Part 2 of his oratorio ‘L’Enfance du Christ’ (’The Childhood of Christ’) which is a trilogy based on the holy family’s flight into Egypt.
From a musical performance point of view, [...]
Lute Book Lullaby - Sweet Was The Song the Virgin Sang
This beautiful melody is often entitled ‘Sweet Was the Song’ but is also known as the ‘Lute Book Lullaby’ as it originates from William Ballet’s collection of lute music which dates from 1600 and is now housed in the library at Trinity College in Dublin. It is an important collection that gives us an insight [...]
Jingle Bells!
‘Jingle Bells’ is perhaps the most popular Christmas tune of all time, however it’s history and development into the present day version is anything but straightforward. Originally penned and copyrighted by James Lord Pierpont in 1857 under the name of ‘One Horse Open Sleigh’ , the original version is quite different than the one we all [...]
See Amid the Winter’s Snow
The twelfth carol on our second volume of carols is an arrangement of ‘See Amid the Winter’s Snow’ by John Goss. It is also known as ‘Hymn For Christmas Day’ and the melody first appeared in Bramley and Stainer’s ‘Christmas Carols New and Old’.
Rather like ‘It Came Upon The Midnight Clear’, it is a tender [...]
Past Three O’Clock
The words to this splendid Christmas carol were written by George Ratcliffe Woodward for the ‘Cambridge carol book’ of 1924. He based them on the cry of the city night watchman and added them to an existing refrain that has it’s origins in Playford’s ‘Dancing Master’ of the 17th century. The tune is a traditional [...]
