Carols

[poliphilo]

According to the BBC- which was broadcasting a concert of the nations top ten carols from The Albert Hall- the nation's number one favourite is "O Holy Night". What! Where on earth did that come from? It wasn't anybody's favourite when I was a vicar. Ailz and my mother said they'd never even heard of it.

Michael Ball sang it . He turned it into musical theatre. Mostly it sounded like Lloyd Webber but with a twiddly bit in the middle that was pure Arthur Sullivan.

I don't hate it, but it's too syrupy for my taste.

My favourite carols (in no particular order)

The Coventry Carol
Adam Lay Ybounden
It Came Upon a Midnight Clear (which really is Arthur Sullivan)
The Angel Gabriel From Heaven Came (aka Most Highly Flavoured Lady)
Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day
I Saw Three Ships
The Holly and the Ivy

My least favourite carol- because it's interminable- is While Shepherds Watched.

Comments

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

It's a Catholic carol, you dyed in the wool Anglican. Its popularity says a lot about religious demographics in the UK, I think.

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

Oh and: I learned this week from the radio that there's an area of South Yorkshire where they sing While Shepherds Watched to the tune of On Ilkley Moor Bar T'at. Much, much jollier!

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

I heard that on the radio the other day. Brilliant!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, I've heard them. It goes on and on and on...

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

Is it really Catholic? I've only ever heard it in Anglican churches - and Aled Thing sang it on the radio a few years ago

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Ah, that explains it....

[eglantine-br.livejournal.com]

I am trying to collect up carols that Kit Marlowe may have known/sung. I have found a couple.

Here the local Business Improvement Club has loud carols playing from the streetlights somehow. But they have picked out a recording of what seems to be 4 year olds. Really little kids who cannot sing. We have an awful lot of Feliz Navidad, it is cheery-- I think I like it better than Jingle Bells. (Jingle Bells sung by little kids makes me want to tear my ears off.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Carols are nicer that Christmas songs. Carols mostly have some genuine feeling to them whereas Christmas songs are just Tin Pan Alley rattling the collection tin.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

O Holy Night is a gorgeous song... if sung properly. Unfortunately, since it's usually performed by a soloist, it is far too often used by singers to demonstrate their individuality. :,

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's what we got last night. Michael Ball was taking time off from performing on the London stage.

[suemars.livejournal.com]

that's my favorite!!!!!

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

Most Highly Flavoured Gravy is what you mean

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's the one!

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

I love most of the anicent carols on your list. And Personent Hodie, with its "ideo O O!" and the organ bit where God goes stomping downstairs and throws the carollers off his doorstep.

And the Gower Wassail: "We know by the moon..."

Nine

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

That's interesting about the refrain. I only know it in English:
"Sing aloud loud loud"
but another LJer says that it's:
"et de vir vir vir" in Latin

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

In the Latin, that triumphant bit is different each time:

et de vir, vir, vir "Virgineo" gets broken off, but that's the start of "and from a virgin..."

Perdidit, dit, dit "He has lost" (the prince of hell, that is)

Aurum, thus, thus, thus "Gold, frankincense"

Ideo "Therefore" (you cannot chant this joyfully in English)

More here.

Nine

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

Oh, I love this one in Latin, too!

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I've no idea who wrote the version we sang at school - it was quite different from the one in the link

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't think I know those.

But if they're medieval I'm sure I'd love 'em.

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

I love "see, amid the winter snow" and "It Came Upon The Midnight Clear" because they are the only ones I know that are under-used.

I don't know "O Holy Night" either, in my lapsed Anglican error.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

On of the great things about Midnight Clear is it doesn't mention Jesus by name- not once!

[splodgenoodles.livejournal.com]

I hadn't heard "O Holy Night" until about a week ago. I kid you not. I think it's just a bit of lazy thinking, and leaping to US defaults. Next the toilet will be called a bathroom...oh wait, that's already happenning.

(Raised by Methodists).

(Also lefties).

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The Methodists rock when it comes to hymns. Hurrah for Charles Wesley!

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

I prefer the more somber ones:

Gabriel's Message
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
O Holy Night
Good King Wenceslas
We Three Kings

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Good King Wenceslas is fun.

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

My favourites:

O Little Town of Bethlehem ( my mum's favourite too; perceptively, she suggests it makes one think of one's hometown)
It Came Upon The Midnight Clear ( so pretty)
Unto Us Is Born A Son (for the verse about Herod)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

"All the little boys he slew
in Bethlem in his fury"

Yeah, good stuff.

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I must have done a slightly different version:

This did Herod sore affray
And grievously bewilder
So he gave the word to slay
And slew the little childer, and slew the little childer

*organ goes all minor and thundery*

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Your version is better than mine.

Childer is a brilliant word.

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

I like the way yours specifies boys, though! (Does it also rhyme 'fury' with 'Jewry'?)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It does. It's a clever rhyme. Almost up to Cole Porter's standard.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

I would say that the list was a fairly 'intellectual' one which is typical Beeb.

There are a lot of wonderful variant tunes for 'Shpeherds' though- it was at one time the only 'legal' Anglican carol.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I groan when Shepherds comes on- irrespective of the tune.

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

I'm partial to:

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
Adeste Fideles
Lo How A Rose Ere Blooming
Silver Bells
White Christmas
The Boar´s Head Carol
Fum Fum Fum

Sorry, some of them fall into the Tin Pan Alley genre.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Isn't that last one out of Jack and the Beanstalk?

I can tolerate White Christmas but only if it's being sung by Bing.

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

Oh Holy Night is a great song. It was probably Michael Ball that ruined it by overloading it with a snowshelf of saccharine.

I tend to agree with you when it comes to the songs, rather than the hymns. I have a love hate relationship with Rutter, mostly hate, but some of his songs are rather nice to sing, though he wouldn't be winning a prize for inventive alto lines.

I like Est ist ein Ros entsprungen by Praetorius;
For Unto Us a Child is Born from Messiah;
The Wexford Carol;
And the choral arrangement of Angelus et Virginem which I can't find on Youtube.

I hate anything that mentions Santa. Or some kitsch musical shite.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Personally I don't think any carol benefits from being sung in the Albert Hall with full orchestral accompaniment.

I'm with you on Santa.

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

I’m left wondering how few carols I actually know. ^_^; I suppose I’ve simply never been much of a religious sort (I tried making sense of the concept, and failed), so I’m left with just the remnants thereof, largely from my schooldays, which had a bit of a CofE slant to them.

I do admire the passions music can inspire, nonetheless. ^_^ Silent Night remains a particular favorite - quite a simple melody, simple lyrics, but helpful in putting one’s mind at ease.

O Holy Night I’m not sure I’ve ever heard. Is it a recent creation?