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

[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.