According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Christmas is a “Christian festival celebrating the birth of Jesus. The English term Christmas (‘mass on Christ’s day’) is of fairly recent origin. The earlier term [was] Yule. . . . Since the early 20th century, Christmas has also been a secular family holiday, observed by Christians and non-Christians alike.”
The Ban of Christmas
Starting in the 16th century many Puritans had been troubled by what they saw as the sinful, boisterous nature of Christmas with its extravagance, waste, and immorality. In their minds it also had too strong an association with the Catholic faith of which Christmas had been an important part of the liturgical calendar. Another complaint was that they saw the festivities as being pagan, having no basis in the Bible. Puritans wanted Christmas Day to be a day of fasting and humility, but otherwise a normal working day. In January 1645 Parliament produced a Directory for Public Worship, which stated that there were to be no holy days apart from Sunday.
Enforcement of the legislation was another matter, and many people continued to celebrate the season despite Parliament’s official position. The fact that Parliament had to keep issuing proclamations against Christmas throughout the 1650s shows that many people ignored the prohibition.
Eventually, in 1660, when the monarchy was restored and Charles II took the throne, the ban was repealed and celebrating Christmas once again became legal.
Christmas in the British Isles
Here in America, we have adopted many British Christmas traditions: the use of holly, ivy, and mistletoe for decorations, Christmas lights, the Christmas tree (originally a German tradition that was introduced by Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria), carol services (and Christmas concerts, like this one), Father Christmas (Santa Claus), candlelight services, and of course, eating and drinking!
There are some customs that we don’t share in the U.S. Wassailing is an old Anglo-Saxon custom that doesn't take place much today. Boxing Day (the day after Christmas) is a very old holiday that started in the UK and is now celebrated in some other countries as well.
In the UK, the main Christmas meal is usually eaten at lunchtime or early afternoon on Christmas Day. It's normally roast turkey, vegetables— often brussels sprouts, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and sometimes bacon and sausages. Traditionally, and before turkey was available, roast beef or goose was the main Christmas meal. Dessert is often Christmas pudding or mince pie.
In the north of England, some very special carol singing, called the Sheffield Carols, happens in some pubs during the weeks leading up to Christmas. The carols are often very local ones and may vary from pub to pub. The singing may be accompanied by local folk musicians.
In Scots, Merry Christmas is Blithe Yule; in Welsh it's Nadolig Llawen; in Gaelic it's Nollaig Chridheil.
Scottish Traditions
The ban on Christmas also took place in Scotland, but it lasted longer. The ban started in 1640. This law was repealed in 1686, but the Church in Scotland was still very opposed to any Christmas celebrations. Christmas was only made a public holiday in 1958, and Boxing Day only became a holiday in 1974! Because of this, for 400 years Christmas was celebrated much more quietly in Scotland.
In Scotland, New Year's Eve (which is called Hogmanay) became much more important than Christmas and is still a very important celebration. The word Hogmanay comes from a kind of oat cake that was traditionally given to children on New Year's Eve.
Also in Scotland, the first person to set foot in a house on New Year’s Day is thought to have a big effect on the fortunes of the people that live there. This is known as “first-footing.” Cleaning the house to welcome the new year is an old Hogmanay tradition.
Welsh Traditions
In some villages in northern Wales there's an old form of carol singing called plygain singing. Plygain services now normally take place during evening services leading up to Christmas. But plygain started as an early morning service on Christmas Day from about 3 am to 6 am. The word plygain may come from a term meaning the cock crowing.
All the carols are based on Bible stories, not just the Christmas story. The carols are sung in Welsh and are unaccompanied. The last carol of the service is the “supper carol” (Carol y Swper); it's normally sung by all the men who have sung carols during the plygain.
Irish Traditions
Christmas for Irish people lasts from Christmas Eve to the feast of Epiphany on January 6th, which some Irish people call “Little Christmas.” In Ireland, many people put up their decorations, including the Christmas tree, on December 8th, which is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.
There is an old tradition, now observed by only a few, that people put a tall, thick candle on the sill of the largest window after sunset on Christmas Eve. The candle is left to burn all night and represents a welcoming light for Mary and Joseph.
Our program will present both arrangements of Christmas carols and songs of the season from these beloved traditions, and compositions by composers from the British Isles (and a guest American) using texts and poetry that bring to mind all of the aspects of this holiday and time of year. Here are some interesting details about our composers and arrangers, and the music that they created.
Richard Rodney Bennett (1936–2012) wrote film, TV, and concert music, and was also a jazz pianist and occasional vocalist. He wrote in a wide range of styles. He said that it was as if the different styles of music that he was writing went on “in different rooms, albeit in the same house.” From the liner notes of a CD of his complete choral music, we learn that “Bennett’s choral pieces are all possessed of a gift for heart-melting, memorable, and quintessentially English melody—and an instinctive lyric responsiveness to English poetry. Poetry always mattered intensely to Bennett, and in his choral writing we find him setting some of the very greatest—Shakespeare, Donne, Marvell, and Spenser—alongside slighter but exquisite lyrics by such poets as Herrick, Quarles, and the medieval ‘anon’s.”
Benjamin Britten (1913–1976) was one of the last composers brought up on exclusively live music: his father refused to have a gramophone or, later, a radio in the house. Britten composed “A Boy Was Born” at age 19 as a student at the Royal College of Music. It was his last project at the college—his first major vocal work and his first mature work on religious themes. He dedicated it to his father.
Ann Burgess was born in Leeds and read music at Edinburgh University, where she studied with Kenneth Leighton. She now lives in England, where she is director of music at Christ Church, Frome, a piano teacher, accompanist, and continuo player, and she sings alto in the Christ Church Singers chamber choir. In December of 2015, her composition “Come the Light” was the winner in the BBC Radio 3 Carol competition. David Hill, BBC Singers Chief Conductor, who chaired the judging panel, said: “Ann Burgess’s carol was fresh and new, bringing a unique new slant onto the traditional Christmas carol.”
Harold Darke (1888–1976) His famous 1909 setting of Christina Rossetti's "In the Bleak Midwinter" is often sung at the service of Nine Lessons and Carols at King's College, Cambridge, and at similar services around the world. In a 2008 poll of choral experts and choirmasters published in BBC Music Magazine, "In the Bleak Midwinter" was voted the greatest Christmas carol of all time. Comparing Darke's setting to another popular setting by Gustav Holst, the editor expressed the view that "While Gustav Holst's charming setting of 1906 is rightly loved by millions worldwide, it is the less well known but infinitely more stylish setting by Harold Darke from three years later that convincingly won the day in our poll."
Walford Davies (1869–1941) became well known for his BBC programs "Music and the Ordinary Listener" (1926–29), his wartime broadcasts for children (1939–41), and "Everyman's Music" (1940–41). The Musical Times called him "one of the world's first great broadcasters"; The Times, in an obituary tribute said: [H]is name has become known to many thousands of people who have not been interested hitherto in music or in musicians. He proved himself to be one of the very few lecturers who could immediately establish the sense of personal contact with audiences over the wireless. They have felt that they knew him and could enter into music, which was the absorbing interest of his life, through the personal relation which he always established immediately with his audiences. It was an almost unique gift.”
Herbert Howells (1892–1983) is most famous for his large output of Anglican church music, even though he was not really an orthodox Christian. A project he was involved in during the 1920s was to lead to a multi-volume edition of Tudor Church Music by Oxford University Press. It enabled him to absorb the English Renaissance style which he loved and would evoke in his own music. His first significant works for choir, the Three Carol-Anthems (“Here is the Little Door,” “A Spotless Rose,” and “Sing Lullaby”), were written around this time. “ Sing Lullaby,” as described by the publisher Stainer and Bell, “has the free sweep and flow of what would sound like plainsong if it weren't moving so fast.”
William Mathias (1934–1992), a Welsh composer, wrote much of his music for the Anglican choral tradition, most famously the anthem “Let the People Praise Thee, O God,” written for the July 1981 royal wedding of the Prince and Princess of Wales, which had a television audience of an estimated one billion people worldwide. “Sir Christèmas" is a traditional British Christmas carol. The song's lyrics and melody are by an unknown author, written sometime before 1510.
Fintan O'Carroll (1922–1981) was born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1922. His family later moved to Waterford, Ireland, and that is where he spent the rest of his life. There is some dispute as to whether Suantraí ár Slánaitheora is an Irish or Scottish carol. It is a Christmas lullaby, in which Mary marvels at the beauty of the newborn baby Jesus.
John Rutter (1945– ) has been associated with choral music and active internationally for many years. He first came to notice as a composer during his student years. Much of his early work consisted of church music and other choral pieces including Christmas carols. His larger choral works are widely performed around the world, and many of his shorter pieces have become standards. The "Sans Day Carol," also known as "St. Day Carol," is a traditional Cornish Christmas carol named after the Cornish village of St. Day. Its text is very closely related to the more famous carol "The Holly and the Ivy." The wistful, unaccompanied “There is a flower,” to words of the fifteenth-century poet John Audelay, was written in the mid-1980s at the request of the legendary organist and choir director of St John’s College, Cambridge, George Guest.
John Tavener (1944–2013) is known for his extensive output of choral religious works. Among his best-known works are “The Lamb” and his “Song for Athene,” which was memorably sung at the funeral of Princess Diana. Tavener converted to the Russian Orthodox Church in 1977. Orthodox theology and liturgical traditions became a major influence on his work. John Rutter describes Tavener as having the "very rare gift" of being able to "bring an audience to a deep silence.” “The Lamb” was composed in 1982. It is a setting to music of the William Blake poem “The Lamb,” from Blake's collection Songs of Innocence. The song was performed shortly after its composition at the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols in Kings College Chapel, Cambridge, on Christmas Eve 1982. The service was broadcast to a large international TV and radio audience, giving the piece widespread exposure.
David Willcocks (1919–2015) was a British choral conductor, organist, composer, and music educator. He was particularly well known for his association with the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, which he directed from 1957 to 1974, making frequent broadcasts and recordings. Several of the descants and carol arrangements he wrote for the annual service of Nine Lessons and Carols were published in the series of books Carols for Choirs which he co-edited. He was also director of the Royal College of Music in London. Willcocks is British, yet made many arrangements of music from other traditions: “Ding Dong Merrily on High” is an arrangement of a traditional French carol, and “The Infant King” is a traditional Basque carol.
Dilys Elwyn-Edwards (1918–2012) was a Welsh-language composer, lecturer, and accompanist. She was born in Dolgellau, Wales. She was offered the Turle Music Scholarship at Girton College, Cambridge, and the Dr. Joseph Parry Scholarship from Cardiff University. She elected to study at Cardiff University and received her bachelor of music degree there. She then received the Open Scholarship in Composition from the Royal College of Music in London, where she studied composition with Herbert Howells and piano with Kathleen McQuitty. She was also an Eisteddfod adjudicator, and appeared and performed on radio and television. The BBC commissioned a number of works from her.
James MacMillan (1959– ), the Scottish composer, came to the attention of the classical establishment with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra's premiere of The Confession of Isobel Gowdie at the Proms in 1990. Isobel Gowdie was one of many women executed for witchcraft in 17th-century Scotland. According to the composer, "On behalf of the Scottish people the work craves absolution and offers Isobel Gowdie the mercy and humanity that was denied her in the last days of her life." MacMillan's music is infused with the spiritual and the political. His Catholic faith has inspired many of his sacred works, including a Magnificat (1999), and several masses. He studied composition at the University of Edinburgh with Rita McAllister and Kenneth Leighton. “O Radiant Dawn” is an antiphon for December 21; the text (in English) is one of the Great O Antiphons, which are used on the seven days approaching Christmas.
Elaine Hagenberg (1979– ) is an American composer, who is a guest artist and featured clinician for professional conferences and festivals both in the U.S. and abroad as a composer, conductor, and accompanist of her work. With over fifty commissioned works, she has composed new music for the American Choral Directors Association, professional choirs, colleges and universities, community choirs, high schools, and churches. “I Am the Wind” was named the winner of the 2020 ACDA Brock Competition for Professional Composers. We present her setting of the “Wexford Carol,” an Irish poem from the 12th century. This is a beloved carol, which has been arranged and presented by many musicians.
Patricia Jennerjohn
Sources: Wikipedia, composers’ Web sites, publishers’ Web sites