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Carols
A carol is a festive song, generally religious but not necessarily connected with Christian church worship, and sometimes accompanied by a dance. A caroller (or caroler) is someone who sings carols, and is said to be carolling (or caroling). Today the carol is represented almost exclusively by the Advent carol, the Christmas carol, and to a lesser extent by the Easter carol; however, despite their present association with religion, this has not always been the case. History The word ''carol'' is derived from the Old French word ''carole'', a circle dance accompanied by singers (in turn derived from the Latin ''choraula''). Carols were very popular as dance songs from the 1150s to the 1350s, after which their use expanded as processional songs sung during festivals, while others were written to accompany religious mystery plays (such as the "Coventry Carol", written before 1534). Sacred music was traditionally sung in Latin by clergy or appointed cantors of the Catholic church ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carols For Choirs
''Carols for Choirs'' is a collection of choral scores, predominantly of Christmas carols and hymns, first published in 1961 by Oxford University Press. It was edited by Sir David Willcocks and Reginald Jacques, and is a widely used source of carols in the British Anglican tradition and among British choral societies. A second volume was published in 1970, edited by David Willcocks and John Rutter, and the collection is now available in five volumes. A compendium edition was published later. In addition to music for Christmas, the collection also offers works that are suitable for other Liturgical year, Christian festivals such as Advent and Epiphany (holiday), Epiphany. The books contain the most commonly performed carols and their harmony arrangements, with descants from the editors (mainly Willcocks) which have become the ''de facto'' standard descants for these tunes in the Anglican communion in the UK. Most of the arrangements were originally written for use by the Choi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christmas Carol
A Christmas carol is a carol (a song or hymn) on the theme of Christmas, traditionally sung at Christmas itself or during the surrounding Christmas holiday season. The term noel has sometimes been used, especially for carols of French origin. Christmas carols may be regarded as a subset of the broader category of Christmas music. History The first known Christmas hymns may be traced to 4th-century Rome. Latin hymns such as Veni redemptor gentium, written by Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan, were austere statements of the theological doctrine of the Incarnation in opposition to Arianism. Corde natus ex Parentis (''Of the Father's heart begotten'') by the Spanish poet Prudentius (d. 413) is still sung in some churches today. In the 9th and 10th centuries, the Christmas sequence (or prose) was introduced in Northern European monasteries, developing under Bernard of Clairvaux into a sequence of rhymed stanzas. In the 12th century the Parisian monk Adam of Saint Victor bega ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christmas Song
Christmas music comprises a variety of genres of music regularly performed or heard around the Christmas season. Music associated with Christmas may be purely instrumental, or, in the case of carols or songs, may employ lyrics whose subject matter ranges from the nativity of Jesus Christ, to gift-giving and merrymaking, to cultural figures such as Santa Claus, among other topics. Many songs simply have a winter or seasonal theme, or have been adopted into the canon for other reasons. While most Christmas songs prior to 1930 were of a traditional religious character, the Great Depression era of the 1930s brought a stream of songs of American origin, most of which did not explicitly reference the Christian nature of the holiday, but rather the more secular traditional Western themes and customs associated with Christmas. These included songs aimed at children such as "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town" and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", as well as sentimental ballad-type songs pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Masters In This Hall
"Masters in This Hall" (alternative title: "Nowell, Sing We Clear") is a Christmas carol with words written around 1860 by the English poet and artist William Morris to an old French dance tune. The carol is moderately popular around the world but has not entered the canon of most popular carols. Tune The French composer Marin Marais composed the tune as a dance for his opera '' Alcyone'' of 1706, with the title ''Marche pour les Matelots''. The tune was subsequently included in Raoul Auger Feuillet's 1706 ''Recueil de contredanse'' along with a longways proper dance, ''La Matelotte'', which Feuillet had himself written to go with the tune.Anderson, Douglas D''Hymns and Carols for Christmas''Contains long and short versions of the lyrics, Accessed December 2009 In 1710 John Essex (d. 1744) published an English translation of Feuillet's work called, ''For the Further Improvement of Dancing'', in which the dance is given as ''The Female Saylor''. Words The words were written arou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Ceremony Of Carols
''A Ceremony of Carols,'' Op. 28, is an extended choral composition for Christmas by Benjamin Britten scored for three-part treble chorus, solo voices, and harp. The text, structured in eleven movements, is taken from ''The English Galaxy of Shorter Poems'', edited by Gerald Bullett. It is principally in Middle English, with some Latin and Early Modern English. It was composed in 1942 on Britten's sea voyage from the United States to England. Britten composed the music at the same time as the '' Hymn to St. Cecilia'' and in similar style. Originally conceived as a series of unrelated songs, it was later unified into one piece with the framing processional and recessional chant in unison based on the Gregorian antiphon "Hodie Christus natus est". A harp solo based on the chant, along with a few other motifs from "Wolcum Yole", also serves to unify the composition. In addition, the movements "This Little Babe" and "Deo Gracias" have the choir reflecting harp-like effects by emplo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ding Dong Merrily On High
"Ding Dong Merrily on High" is a Christmas carol. The tune first appeared as a secular dance tune known under the title "Branle de l'Official" in ''Orchésographie'', a dance book written by the French cleric, composer and writer Thoinot Arbeau, pen name of Jehan Tabourot (1519–1593). The words are by the English composer George Ratcliffe Woodward (1848–1934), and the carol was first published in 1924 in his ''The Cambridge Carol-Book: Being Fifty-two Songs for Christmas, Easter, And Other Seasons''. Woodward took an interest in church bell ringing, which no doubt aided him in writing it. Woodward was the author of several carol books, including ''Songs of Syon'' and '' The Cowley Carol Book''. The macaronic style is characteristic of Woodward’s delight in archaic poetry. Charles Wood harmonised the tune when it was published with Woodward's text in ''The Cambridge Carol Book''. More recently, Sir David Willcocks made an arrangement for the second book of ''Carols for Choir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Ratcliffe Woodward
George Ratcliffe Woodward (27 December 1848 – 3 March 1934) was an English Anglican priest who wrote mostly religious verse, both original and translated from ancient authors. The best-known of these were written to fit traditional melodies, mainly of the Renaissance. He sometimes harmonised these melodies himself, but usually left this to his frequent collaborator, composer Charles Wood. Woodward was born at 26 Hamilton Square, Birkenhead, North West England, and educated at Elstree School, then located in Elstree, Hertfordshire, then Harrow School. In 1867 he won a Sayer Scholarship to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, graduating in 1872, third class in the Classics Tripos. On 21 December 1874 he was ordained deacon by the Bishop of London, to serve as Assistant Curate at St Barnabas, Pimlico. In September 1882 he moved to St Mary and All Saints, Little Walsingham with Houghton St Giles, in Norfolk. Woodward played the cello, and the euphonium, sometimes in proce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coventry Carol
The "Coventry Carol" is an English Christmas carol dating from the 16th century. The carol was traditionally performed in Coventry in England as part of a mystery play called ''Coventry Mystery Plays, The Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors''. The play depicts the Christmas story from Matthew 2, chapter two in the Gospel of Matthew: the carol itself refers to the Massacre of the Innocents, in which Herod the Great, Herod ordered all male infants under the age of two in Bethlehem to be killed, and takes the form of a lullaby sung by mothers of the doomed children. The music contains a well-known example of a Picardy third. The author is unknown; the oldest known text was written down by Robert Croo in 1534, and the oldest known setting of the melody dates from 1591. There are alternative, modern settings of the carol by Kenneth Leighton and another by Philip Stopford. History and text The carol is the second of three songs included in the Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors, a n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Morris
William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He was a major contributor to the revival of traditional British textile arts and methods of production. His literary contributions helped to establish the modern fantasy genre, while he helped win acceptance of socialism in ''fin de siècle'' Great Britain. Morris was born in Walthamstow, Essex, to a wealthy middle-class family. He came under the strong influence of medievalism while studying Classics at Oxford University, there joining the Birmingham Set. After university, he married Jane Burden, and developed close friendships with Pre-Raphaelite artists Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti and with Neo-Gothic architect Philip Webb. Webb and Morris designed Red House in Kent where Morris lived from 1859 to 1865, before moving t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Studwell
William Emmett Studwell (18 March 1936 – 2 August 2010) was an American librarian who became known for his knowledge of carols. Biography William Studwell was born in Stamford, Connecticut and he studied history at the University of Connecticut. Fight songs The University of Notre Dame song is one of the most recognizable collegiate fight songs in the United States. Studwell ranked the song first, and said it was "more borrowed, more famous and, frankly, you just hear it more." Christmas carols Studwell had started to choose a carol for each year starting in 1986 when he chose the Ukrainian ''Carol of the Bells''. Studwell took an academic interest in carols which he had spent over 6,000 hours in study. Before Christmas each year he would announce the new carol and he would be invited to interviews with the media where he was quizzed on his choice. Studwell died in Bloomington Hospital in 2010. The day before he died he dictated a letter to his daughter which recorded his se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Advent
Advent is a Christian season of preparation for the Nativity of Christ at Christmas. It is the beginning of the liturgical year in Western Christianity. The name was adopted from Latin "coming; arrival", translating Greek ''parousia''. In the New Testament, this is the term used for the Second Coming of Christ. Thus, the season of Advent in the Christian calendar anticipates the "coming of Christ" from three different perspectives: the physical nativity in Bethlehem, the reception of Christ in the heart of the believer, and the eschatological Second Coming. Practices associated with Advent include Advent calendars, lighting an Advent wreath, praying an Advent daily devotional, erecting a Christmas tree or a Chrismon tree, lighting a Christingle, as well as other ways of preparing for Christmas, such as setting up Christmas decorations, a custom that is sometimes done liturgically through a hanging of the greens ceremony. The equivalent of Advent in Eastern Christianity is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Barnard (composer)
John Barnard (born 20 April 1948) is a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists (FRCO), an Associate of the Royal School of Church Music (ARSCM) and an active developer of church music as a composer, arranger, choir director, kaiju and organist in North West London, England. Barnard was on the Council of the Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland and has been active in helping to assemble such publications as ''Hymns for Today's Church'', ''Carols for Today'' and ''Psalms for Today''. He has been Director of Music at a series of high-profile churches, which include Emmanuel Church (Northwood), St Alban's Church (North Harrow), John Keble Church (Mill Hill) and St John the Evangelist Church (Stanmore). He returned to John Keble Church in September 2010, following the appointment of Canon Chris Chivers as Vicar. Life and work Barnard was educated at The John Lyon School and later went up to Cambridge University to study Modern and Medieval Languages at Selwyn College ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
