Under-appreciated Carols for Advent/Christmas
It's coming down to the wire for Advent/Christmas music to be selected and in hand for the coming seasons. I'd be curious to know your opinions on Carols you consider to be excellent, yet for some reason under-appreciated and therefore too infrequently presented.
One that I always enjoy hearing is Bethlehem Down by Peter Warlock (Philip Arnold Heseltine (1894–1930) but if I don't program it for Lessons & Carols I don't hear it. Maybe it's the minor mode. Maybe it's the adventurous harmonies. I dunno. I'm just always glad to hear it.
A second is Steven Heitzeg's little tree, though I always need to be careful when I listen to this one. It always brings on a lump in the throat and if I let them, the tears will roll. Everyone may not consider this to be a proper carol, but it's required listening for me every Christmastide. If you listen, make sure your environment is quiet -- there are some very soft and sensitive moments. I should add that it's the last track on the album I linked to.
I have more, but I already know about those! Please share your under-appreciated, under-performed favorites.
One that I always enjoy hearing is Bethlehem Down by Peter Warlock (Philip Arnold Heseltine (1894–1930) but if I don't program it for Lessons & Carols I don't hear it. Maybe it's the minor mode. Maybe it's the adventurous harmonies. I dunno. I'm just always glad to hear it.
A second is Steven Heitzeg's little tree, though I always need to be careful when I listen to this one. It always brings on a lump in the throat and if I let them, the tears will roll. Everyone may not consider this to be a proper carol, but it's required listening for me every Christmastide. If you listen, make sure your environment is quiet -- there are some very soft and sensitive moments. I should add that it's the last track on the album I linked to.
I have more, but I already know about those! Please share your under-appreciated, under-performed favorites.
Comments
Back on strict carols, the Coventry Carol is always good
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgEbxam7wBA
I was waiting for someone to mention the Albion Christmas Band!
Having said that, and despite owning much of their output, a tiny bit of me always finds them a bit cynical- it’s a cash cow that taps into those as likes such things (YMMV).
I appreciate another way of looking at it is the folk rock glitterati having a lovely time, and I do try and see it as that, but at the same time I struggle!
ETA, just read this back out loud and Mrs B insists I clarify that part of this is driven by my opinion of Fairport as simultaneously almost my favourite band (in the top 2 or 3) and now the exemplar of a pipe and slippers waste of time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zGX2J8qD-A
Not sure if the average Carol Service congregation could manage it, but it would do well as a choir anthem at (say) Epiphany Mattins or Evensong.
I sang "Bethlehem Down" at school c.1966.
Do you have a link to Rejoice and be merry ?
There's one we sometimes sang at The Tin Tabernacle Of My Youth, which had the refrain:
Aye, and therefore be merry,
Rejoice, and be ye merry,
Cast sorrow aside!
Christ Jesus our Saviour was born on this tide.
The first verse began A virgin most pure, so the prophet foretold, though there are different versions. I've looked on YouTube, but can't find the rather cheerful tune we used to warble!
I think it's in my Oxford Book of Carols, but that's on a Dark Shelf, and it's getting late...
Indeed it is, number 4. I learned it at school.
I have a recording ( which I no longer have the means to play) of my school choir singing Rejoice and be Merry.
I love Bethlehem Down, but it is hard to keep the pitch. The harmonies are interesting.
There are many carols I love, but this is one of the best.
Does Britten's A Ceremony of Carols count as under-appreciated? I don't think I'd ever heard it in full until last Christmas, when it was performed (in Latin, Middle English, and Tudor English) by some of the choir trebles of Uppsala Cathedral, Sweden.
The singers were accompanied by a solo harpist, and the performance was made into a liturgical service - there was a good-sized congregation in the Cathedral's chancel - by the interpolation of a couple of very short Gospel readings, a couple of prayers, and the Lord's Prayer (all in Swedish).
It made a very refreshing and minimalist change from the *traditional* Carols & Nine Lessons sort of thing...
My problem is that these are more or less the only ones I am familiar with and I feel comfortable with them.
We’ve also sung Paul Manz’s Een So Lord Jesus Quickly Come several times around advent and will be singing it again this year. Another excellent not so well known piece.
However this IMHO is definitely not how to sing it - it needs to be in a raunchier rustic style, with more rhythm and oomph.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L_Yc-rWHvQ
I love some of the carols sung by Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band — particularly “Sing, Sing all Earth.”. It’s a great shame that they will be disbanding, but they are not the youngest anymore!
It’s part of the Cantata Hodie which may be why not as many people are familiar with it as a freestanding work. Also quite beautiful from that cantata is the penultimate choral - No sad thought his soul affright, especially the second verse with words written by Ursula Vaughan Williams.
Unfortunately Hodie isn’t performed very often as a whole - it requires a full orchestra, organ, and boys and mixed choirs. It’s a work with many highlights including the recitatives (Narrations) written for treble voices and organ. Many years ago my college choir sang The Blessed Son of God, together with the Narration that precedes it, at an Advent Carol Service, which is how I discovered the larger work.
Ah, thanks ... we heard them in Ipswich aeons ago, and Maddy Prior had a cold! I have a full School Governors' meeting that day, alas.
We are including Advent (as the thread title demonstrates
Have you ever considered teaching a Music Appreciation class at a Community College local to you, @Nick Tamen? All true re: the "carole."
"Sans Day Carol" (John Rutter's arrangement) -- a staple of both my father-in-law's and my own annual L&C programs seemingly forever. Delightful organ part if an orchestra isn't available. I also enjoy hearing The Chieftans perform it on their The Bells of Dublin album.
Thank you for this!
Wow -- Gallery Carol sounds fun -- rhythmic and jazzy -- refreshing.
This Charles Wood arrangement of "A Virgin most pure" s the carol I know best with that text as a refrain: https://youtu.be/eRiC4HvG4K0?si=HyTp1z52L_Lt9g4b -- I like that a lot.
The Britten work counts, indeed! Harpists are pretty rare, so it's not often performed. And yet, Rivlet1 (a DMA Voice student) is singing this piece with harp in a month or so. Though, O can't say whether it's the women only version, or the arrangement for SATB (I'm hoping it's the former).
I found a PDF of this online in hymn form -- thank you!
Yikes! re: Bethlehem Down -- I hope that someday it can extricate itself form those memories! I know the Manz, and I'd agree that it's not so well known. Another carol largely in the minor mode.
Thank you!!
YESSIR!!! For me, it is *not* Christmas without this carol.
Hodie is a tragically underperformed masterwork -- yes! I've been fortunate to perform it twice: once as a singer, and once as the conductor. The logistics are a challenge, and here int the US it takes quite a bit of doing to prepare a group of boys well enough (if a standing boychoir isn't available). "The Blessed Son" and "No Sad Thought..." have enjoyed their own successes, but I'd wager that if people 'knew' anything from Hodie it's "The blessed Sion of God.'
Now that is my kind of carol! And with a fuguing tune!
This is great -- thank you!
I love this, too! Definitely underperformed, maybe because of Christmas fatigue, but a wonderful carol to be sure. The text makes for an interesting study on its own. When I had a Choir of Men & Boys at an Episcopal Parish years ago, we had an annual dinner/concert/silent auction fundraiser for the guys on 12th Night every year. We always included "A New Year Carol." :wistful:
Here’s another vote for “Bethlehem Down.”
While it may not sound like anyone’s conception of a Christmas (or Epiphany) carol, I love “Star in the East,” which draws on “Brightest and Best of the Sons of the Morning.” (The version to which I linked is a concert version, though it does preserve the traditional harmonies. For the “native” version, try here.)
And living as I do in a place with noticeable Moravian influence, I do wish “Morning Star, O Cheering Sight” was better known outside Moravian churches and the areas influenced by them. It’s traditionally sung at the Christmas Love Feast and perhaps also on Christmas Eve, with a child/children singing the solo lines and the congregation responding, as here.
Both Sydney Carter’s “Every Star Shall Sing a Carol” and Ken Carmichael’s “Bring We the Frankincense of our Love” have appeared in hymnals of my tribe, but no longer do. (I think “Bring We the Frankincense” was only ever published in two or three hymnals.) They are both lovely, I think. I know why “Every Star” disappeared; I’ve tried to figure out how to make the line “God above, Man below” inclusive yet still poetic, but have had no success.
And this is a small thing, but I still grieve the loss in our more recent hymnals of the harmonization for “Infant Holy, Infant Lowly” in my tribes 1955 The Hymnbook. Granted, it lacked the repetition of the last phrase, but the harmony on the third line is simply sumptuous.
Meanwhile, for many years, when children were younger and my wife needed to stay home with them, I would go by myself to sing in the choir at the midnight service. On the solitary drive home, it became my practice to listen to Morten Lauridsen’s O Magnum Mysterium. That is still the musical definition of Christmas Eve/early Christmas morning for me.
Paging @RecoveringCynic. I think he’d enjoy this thread, and have ideas to add, but I think he mainly looks at Ecclesiantics.
I love Brightest and Best (but only to STAR IN THE EAST as I am a big shape note fan). Shawn Kirchner has an excellent choral version.
Another gem is Break Forth, O Beauteous Heavenly Light...a beautiful chorale that I think gets slept on a lot as it only has one verse.
Less of a carol, strictly speaking, but I love Rory Cooney's Canticle of the Turning version of the Magnificat to STAR OF THE COUNTY DOWN.
Prepare The Way O Zion (BEREDEN VÄG FÖR HERRAN) is a fun Advent romp, especially if you add some instrumental color to it, along similar lines to "On Jordan's Bank" to PUER NOBIS or Comfort, Comfort to the Genevan tune.
When I was young, I always enjoyed Angels, From the Realms of Glory to REGENT SQUARE. Frequently sung in my neck of the woods, but I always felt underappreciated. It just felt pleasantly Christmassy.
Let All Mortal Flesh is one that is frequently in the Eucharist sections of hymnals, but it was in the Advent section of our hymnal growing up, and I always like it in that context.
I have too many favorite arrangements and anthems to count...
Ha...I considered linking that one
I do enjoy making that tune "dance" as if it were done by a medieval consort.
Speaking of Epiphany music, @Nick Tamen, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention "There shall a star from Jacob come forth" by Mendelssohn. I think of it as a carol, but opinions vary. I'd say it's definitely underperformed. Of course, I think Mendelssohn is underperformed in general. This piece was from an unfinished oratorio, Christus. It finishes on a straightforward verse of "Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern," which always came as a relief to my choristers!
Back to Christmas proper, and one of the more ambitions carols I've ever taught and directed is "Joys Seven" arranged by Stephen Cleobury. Input it in the same category as Sans Day Carol: it's lilting, cheerful, infectious, even charming. The sixth verse describes Mary's 'joy' as "to see her own son, Jesus Christ, upon the crucifix," and despite the cognitive dissonance of a mother experiencing joy in that moment, the harmonies are a lovely, seven-part, a cappella departure from the previous five verses. Soaring treble/soprano descant over the seventh verse with an opened-up reedy organ... wonderful!
I can't let Vaughan Williams discussion wane before mentioning "The truth from above," another extraction of sorts from a slightly larger work (his Fantasia on Christmas Carols). Truly, I'd be nowhere without RVW (not really, but you get my drift -- biiig fan -- HUGE fan!
Ave Maria-s are everywhere during Advent/Christmas, but I wish Javier Busto's setting was presented more. It's simply lovely, and with an atmospheric Latino quality.
Speaking of Latino carols, Conrad Susa's Carols and Lullabies from the Southwest is replete with them, including "A la nanita nana" and "El rorro."
What can I add to what @Nick Tamen has already said about "O magnum mysterium?" I have been fortunate to sing and conduct Lauridsen's full "O Nata Lux" a number of times, and the whole thing is glorious.
In that same vein is Howard Helvey's "O lux beatissima." Run -- don't walk -- to hear this well sung in a supportive acoustic!!!
It would be boring if we were all the same.
I suppose we'll always have Vaughan Williams. Though, if you don't like RVW either, well... I wish you all the best, and don't let the choir room door hit you on your way out!
I once taught and conducted Mendelssohn's 2nd Symphony, his Lobegesang, Op.52 and quite enjoyed it. It's true that his music doesn't seem to be for everybody, though we should always remember that if it wasn't for ol' Felix, much more of JS Bach's music might be lost to us.
PS: Check your DMs.
And check yours.
This version of While Shepherds Watched, known as Old Fosters, is another of my favourites. It is depressing when there are so many much better tunes for While Shepherds Watched that, by the action of the compilers of the first Edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern in 1861, it has become indelibly attached to Winchester Old, probably the dullest of all those options.
Another tune that While Shepherds Watched goes particularly well to is Lyngham, It is a setting particularly popular in Cornwall, but for most people in the UK, that is the tune they expect for 'O for a thousand tongues'. I believe in the USA that is usually associated with a quite different tune, which I don't think is widely known here.
I usually think that people who disparage John Rutter's music have heard of looked at very, very little of it.
I hope you will join us in Heaven more frequently, @RecoveringCynic!
"Break Forth" is one of my all time favorite Christmas Carols! In the 1989 UMC Hymnal, there are three verses, which gave me three times the joy of playing it!
"There Shall a Star" is another favorite. Way back in 1993 it was the first piece of music I played to accompany the choir my first Sunday after I was hired.
So many wonderful Carols and Christmas Hymns in this thread!