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Dec 23, 2021 · Carols were being collected and printed widely by the 19th century. And in 1880, it’s believed the Christmas carol service was invented in Truro by an Edward White Benson, who later became the Archbishop of Canterbury. Many of today’s most popular carols are dignified 19th-century offerings with tuneful melodies, rich harmonies and ...
- Why Do We Sing Christmas Carols?
- What Are The Origins of Carol Singing?
- What Are The Origins of Carol Services?
- What Is The Oldest Christmas Carol?
We sing Christmas carols because they are a way of telling the story of the nativity and the birth of Jesus Christ. As well as explaining what happened around Jesus’s birth, the songs enable us to encapsulate and express the joy, devotion and awe-inspiring scenes of the nativity. As well as telling the nativity story, Christmas carols spread joy an...
In the Middle Ages, groups of ‘wassailers’ went from house to house singing for the purpose of joy-spreading and entertaining throughout the winter period. There would have been pagan songs for Winter Solstice that predated Christian hymns but, over time, Christmas carols began to be heard more and more in the wintertime. In the 17th century, Olive...
The modern carol service is thought to have been invented by Edward White Benson in 1880, at Truro Cathedral in Cornwall. The cathedral was newly complete but, the story goes, its erection wasn’t particularly popular due to a popular old church and homes being demolished in its wake. In an attempt to appease his parish in the winter months, and kee...
One of the first carols recorded is ‘Angels Hymn’, which is from 129 AD. By the 12th century, history records nativity themed carols being performed widely to celebrate the birth of Jesus. And one of the oldest printed carols is the ‘Boar’s Head Carol’ (listen above), which dates from 1521. It’s believed to have been heard annually at Queen’s Colle...
Dec 20, 2016 · The Christmas carol service was invented in Truro in 1880 by a chap called Edward WhiteBenson. ... This is why so many of them are really rather odd. ... The most famous carol service is the ...
- Ellie Cawthorne
- The Twelve Days of Christmas. Alexandra Coghlan: Of all the Christmas carols we sing today, none presents more of a challenge than The Twelve Days of Christmas, with its baffling list of lyrics.
- We Wish You a Merry Christmas. AC: What’s interesting about this catchy little carol are the customs it reveals. Both wassailing and mumming were still going strong under the Tudor monarchs, with carollers and players going from door to door performing.
- Deck the Halls. AC: One popular 16th-century song was the carol we know today as Deck the Halls. Back then it was a favourite Welsh song, originally titled Nos Galan.
- The Holly and the Ivy. So try as Christian carol writers might to impose their own symbols on the plants – the red holly berry as Jesus’s blood, the white holly flower his shroud – they have to work hard to displace earlier layers of meaning.
- Mark Cartwright
- Origins of Carols. The word 'carol' tends to be exclusively associated with sacred songs related to Christmas, but it once had a wider meaning and referred to several different genres of music used in medieval church services across Europe.
- Carols in the 19th Century. The carol genre made a strong comeback in the latter stages of the 19th century, largely thanks to the increase in popularity of the Christmas celebration and, rather ironically for such religious music, because the holiday became increasingly secular and commercial.
- Carol Singing. People sang carols at home by the family piano, very often after dinner in the Christmas period. They also sang in taverns, a tradition that remains strong in certain counties of England, especially Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, and Derbyshire.
- Five Popular Carols. The 20th century continued to see an interest in carols, and scholars endeavoured to catalogue the original tunes and arrangements, sometimes returning them to resemble more their medieval appearance and sound.
Dec 22, 2014 · Bing Crosby, whose Christmas album is one of the most popular of all time, first recorded “Silent Night” in 1928. In the almost nine decades since, the song has been recorded and re-recorded ...
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Dec 7, 2020 · The most recorded carol of all time had humble origins: it was written in a tiny village in Austria by Franz Xaver Gruber and Joseph Mohr, churchmen who wanted a simple song to perform for ...
