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We Wish You A Merry Christmas
"We Wish You a Merry Christmas" is an English Christmas carol, listed as numbers 230 and 9681 in the Roud Folk Song Index. The famous version of the carol is from the English West Country. Popular version The Bristol-based composer, conductor and organist Arthur Warrell (1883-1939) is responsible for the popularity of the carol. Warrell, a lecturer at the University of Bristol from 1909, arranged the tune for his own University of Bristol Madrigal Singers as an elaborate four-part arrangement, which he performed with them in concert on December 6, 1935. His composition was published by Oxford University Press the same year under the title "A Merry Christmas: West Country traditional song". Warrell's arrangement is notable for using "I" instead of "we" in the words; the first line is "I wish you a Merry Christmas". It was subsequently republished in the collection '' Carols for Choirs'' (1961), and remains widely performed. The popular version begins as follows: Many tra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christmas Music
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 p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christmas Is Coming
"Christmas Is Coming" is a traditional nursery rhyme and Christmas song frequently sung as a round. It is listed as number 12817 in the Roud Folk Song Index. The most famous version goes as follows: :Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat :Please put a penny in the old man's hat :If you haven't got a penny, a ha'penny will do :If you haven't got a ha'penny, then God bless you! The traditional version of this song uses the melody of the English dance tune "Country Gardens", but other melodies exist. Edith Nesbit Bland composed a popular tune for the lyrics. A few field recordings were made of traditional versions of the song, including one sung by Jack Elliot of Birtley, Durham to Reg Hall in the early 1960s, which is archived within the British Library Sound Archive. The Kingston Trio recorded the song as "A Round About Christmas", on their album ''The Last Month of the Year''. A calypso sounding version was featured on the album '' John Denver and the Muppets: A C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charlotte Mary Yonge
Charlotte Mary Yonge (1823–1901) was an English novelist, who wrote in the service of the church. Her abundant books helped to spread the influence of the Oxford Movement and show her keen interest in matters of public health and sanitation. Life Charlotte Mary Yonge was born in Otterbourne, Hampshire, England, on 11 August 1823 to William Yonge and Fanny Yonge, ''née'' Bargus. She was educated at home by her father, studying Latin, Greek, French, Euclid, and algebra. Her father's lessons could be harsh: He required a diligence and accuracy that were utterly alien to me. He thundered at me so that nobody could bear to hear it, and often reduced me to tears, but his approbation was so delightful that it was a delicious stimulus.... I believe, in spite of all breezes over my innate slovenliness, it would have broken our hearts to leave off working together. And we went on till I was some years past twenty. Yonge's devotion to her father was lifelong and her relations with hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrew Parrott
Andrew Parrott (born 10 March 1947) is a British conductor, perhaps best known for his pioneering "historically informed performances" of pre-classical music. He conducts a wide range of repertoire, including contemporary music. He conducted the premiere of Judith Weir's ''A Night at the Chinese Opera'' (as well as its first recording). He has also recorded new music by other modern British composers (including John Tavener), and by Vladimír Godár. In 1973 he founded the Taverner Choir, Consort and Players, a "period instruments" ensemble based in London. Towards the end of 1973 he began conducting the early music group Musica Reservata, also based in London, after John Beckett left. He was music director of the London Mozart Players for several years until September 2006. From 2001 to 2010 Parrott was music director of the New York Collegium in New York City, New York. Parrott has published several articles on Bach, Monteverdi and Purcell, is co-editor of the ''New Oxford ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Oxford Book Of Carols
''The New Oxford Book of Carols'' is a collection of vocal scores of Christmas carols. It was first published in 1992 by Oxford University Press (OUP) and was edited by Hugh Keyte and Andrew Parrott. It is a widely used source of carols in among choirs and church congregations in Britain. The collection was published as a successor to the ''Oxford Book of Carols'', originally published in 1928. This thoroughly documented text contains notes on sources, histories and variants of carols from a wide variety of sources; it is usable not only as a book for carol singing, but as a reference book as well. A ''Shorter New Oxford Book of Carols'' was issued in 1992, and other selections have been made. History The original ''Oxford Book of Carols'' was first published in 1928 by OUP. It was edited by Percy Dearmer, Martin Shaw, and the noted composer and scholar of English folk-song Ralph Vaughan Williams. The book was highly influential as it introduced British choirs and church ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Oxford Book Of Carols
''The Oxford Book of Carols'' is a collection of vocal scores of Christmas carols and carols of other seasons. It was first published in 1928 by Oxford University Press and was edited by Percy Dearmer, Martin Shaw and Ralph Vaughan Williams. It became a widely used source of carols among choirs and church congregations in Britain. History Vaughan Williams was a noted composer and arranger of music in the Anglican Church and a founder member of the English Folk Dance and Song Society. He was a scholar of English folk-song and his music was greatly influenced by traditional folk forms.Frogley, Alain"Williams, Ralph Vaughan (1872–1958)" ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, retrieved 10 October 2015 Vaughan Williams had collaborated with Percy Dearmer on the production of the ''English Hymnal'', which was published in 1906, and as with this hymnal, ''The Oxford Book of Carols'' favoured traditional folk tunes and polyphonic arrangements of carols ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Sandys (antiquarian)
William Sandys (1792 – 18 February 1874) (pronounced "Sands") was an English solicitor, member of the Percy Society, fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and remembered for his publication ''Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern'' (London, Richard Beckley, 1833), a collection of seasonal carols that Sandys had gathered and also apparently improvised. Collection Sandys' book marked the first appearances of many now-classic English carols, including ''"God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen"'', and ''" The First Noel"'', and contributed to the mid-Victorian revival of the holiday. Sandys presented his collections in three parts. The first part "Containing Ancient Carols and Christmas Songs, From the Early Part of the Fifteenth to The End of the Seventeenth Century" contains examples in Middle English and Early Modern English. The second part of Sandys' collection contains "A Selection From Carols Still Used In The West Of England" which Sandys claimed to have selected " ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Davies Gilbert
Davies Gilbert (born Davies Giddy, 6 March 1767 – 24 December 1839) was an English engineer, author, and politician. He was elected to the Royal Society on 17 November 1791 and served as President of the Royal Society from 1827 to 1830. He changed his name to Gilbert in 1817. Biography Davies Giddy was born on 6 March 1767, the second of the three children of Reverend Edward Giddy, curate of St Erth's church, and his wife Catherine, daughter of Henry Davies of Tredrea, St Erth in Cornwall. His parents' first child, also Davies by forename, died within 24 hours of birth in 1766, and their third child, Mary Philippa Davies Giddy (known as Philippa) was born in 1769. The Giddy family moved to Penzance, living on Chapel Street in 1775, until Giddy's mother Catherine inherited the family home of Tredrea back in St Erth. By 1780 the family returned to St Erth, and Davies was taught by his father, alongside his sister Philippa. Davies Giddy would later adopt Gilbert as his surname ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christmas Pudding
Christmas pudding is sweet dried-fruit pudding traditionally served as part of Christmas dinner in Britain and other countries to which the tradition has been exported. It has its origins in medieval England, with early recipes making use of dried fruit, suet, breadcrumbs, flour, eggs and spice, along with liquid such as milk or fortified wine. Later, recipes became more elaborate. In 1845, cookery writer Eliza Acton wrote the first recipe for what she called "Christmas pudding". The dish is sometimes known as plum puddingBroomfield, Andrea (2007Food and cooking in Victorian England: a historypp.149-150. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007 (though this can also refer to other kinds of boiled pudding involving dried fruit). The word "plum" was used then for what has been called a "raisin" since the 18th century, and the pudding does not in fact contain plums in the modern sense of the word. Basics Many households have their own recipes for Christmas pudding, some handed down thr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Figgy Pudding
Figgy Pudding (occasionally Piggy-Pudding) is a vague term used for a class of traditional Christmas dishes usually forming sweet and savory cakes, containing a sour-sweet creamy layer of honey, fruits and nuts. In later times, rum or other distilled alcohol became often added to enrich the fruitiness of the flavor. Etymology Medieval cooking commonly employed figs, in both sweet and savoury dishes. One such dish is fygey, in the 14th century cookbook ''The Forme of Cury'', which in Modern English is "figgy", this dish being known as ''figgy pudding'' or fig pudding: The Middle English name had several spellings, including , , , , and . The latter is a 15th-century conflation with a different dish. Figee was in fact a dish of fish and curds, which was named in Old French, meaning "curdled" (the past participle of the Old French ). But it too came to mean a "figgy" dish, involving cooked figs, boiled in wine or otherwise. A turn of the 15th century herbal has a recipe for fig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve is the evening or entire day before Christmas Day, the festival commemorating the birth of Jesus. Christmas Day is observed around the world, and Christmas Eve is widely observed as a full or partial holiday in anticipation of Christmas Day. Together, both days are considered one of the most culturally significant celebrations in Christendom and Western society. Christmas celebrations in the denominations of Western Christianity have long begun on Christmas Eve, due in part to the Christian liturgical day starting at sunset, a practice inherited from Jewish tradition and based on the story of Creation in the Book of Genesis: "And there was evening, and there was morning – the first day." Many churches still ring their church bells and hold prayers in the evening; for example, the Nordic Lutheran churches. Since tradition holds that Jesus was born at night (based in Luke 2:6-8), Midnight Mass is celebrated on Christmas Eve, traditionally at midnight, in c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Library Sound Archive
The British Library Sound Archive, formerly the British Institute of Recorded Sound; also known as the National Sound Archive (NSA), in London, England is among the largest collections of recorded sound in the world, including music, spoken word and ambient recordings. It holds more than six million recordings, including over a million discs and 200,000 tapes. These include commercial record releases (chiefly from the UK), radio broadcasts (many from the BBC Sound Archive), and privately made recordings. History The history of the Sound Archive can be traced back to 1905, when it was first suggested that the British Museum should have a collection of audio recordings of poets and statesmen. The Gramophone Company started donating metal masters of audio recordings in 1906 (on the basis that records would wear out), with a number of donations being made up until 1933. These recordings included some by Nellie Melba, Adelina Patti, Caruso and Francesco Tamagno, and others of Lev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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