The English “Play” Carols

We are almost (technically at least) into the carol singing season. Now I know that many of you will have been O Christmas Tree-ing to the point of praying for death for weeks now, but in England we have a tradition of carols quite unlike many of those that find popular acclaim.

Many of our carols are not the happy “yeah, Jesus is born of a babe in Bethlehem” type, but foretell of the passion and suffering in years hence. One of the most famous of these is the Coventry carol. First written in the 16th Century, it is part of a mystery play called the Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors and depicts part of Matthew’s Gospel and the Massacre of the Innocents, in which Herod orders the murder of all male children under the age of two on hearing of the birth of the Messiah.

The lyrics themselves are first thought to have originated from around 1534, written down by playwright and poet Kenneth Croo and the melody is slightly older. The story is told from the perspective of the maidens of Jerusalem on hearing of the birth of Christ and their hope that he escape. As the oldest surviving manuscript (of the time) was lost in the 18th Century, some of the meaning of the translations has been lost to time and is cause of speculation, the meaning of “And ever morne and may For thi parting Neither say nor singe” is somewhat unclear for example, but that doesn’t detract from the aesthetic of the piece. The harmony is a prime example of the picardy third, or the use of a major chord of the tonic at the end of a musical sentence that is either modal or in a minor key, and this device was quite common in creating a “medieval” sound.

Another of the traditional carols that come from a play setting of the gospel story is the Shropshire Carol, recently re-arranged by Stephen Cleobury. The lyrics are again from the perspective of the women of Jerusalem foretelling the sorrow of Mary as Christ is Crucified and the carol consists of a dialogue between the soprano/treble narrator and the bass Christus leaving John as his beloved disciple to care for his mother as he dies on the cross.

Perhaps one of the most famous, as it is sung quite often in the Kings College Cambridge Carol service and arranged by David Wilcocks is I saw three ships, which tells the tale of ships sailing into the Dead Sea with pilgrims on their way to Bethlehem to find the relics of the magi in the 12th Century. The Sussex Carol is also worth a mention, though it is considerably less pensive than some of its place-named companions I do enjoy it immensely.

If you have never discovered these carols before they are well worth a look and make a fine antidote to some of this season’s more saccharine music