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A Christmas carol is a carol on the theme of Christmas, traditionally sung at Christmas itself or during the surrounding Christmas holiday season. The term noel has sometimes been used, especially for carols of French origin. Christmas carols may be regarded as a subset of the broader category of Christmas music.
A carol is a festive song, generally religious but not necessarily connected with church worship, and sometime accompanied by a dance. A caroller is someone who sings carols, and is said to be carolling.
John Milford Rutter is an English composer, conductor, editor, arranger, and record producer, mainly of choral music.
"The Cherry-Tree Carol" is a ballad with the rare distinction of being both a Christmas carol and one of the Child Ballads. The song itself is very old, reportedly sung in some form at the Feast of Corpus Christi in the early 15th century.
"The Holly and the Ivy" is a traditional British folk Christmas carol, listed as number 514 in the Roud Folk Song Index. The song can be traced only as far as the early nineteenth century, but the lyrics reflect an association between holly and Christmas dating at least as far as medieval times. The lyrics and melody varied significantly in traditional communities, but the song has since become standardised. The version which is now popular was collected in 1909 by the English folk song collector Cecil Sharp in the market town of Chipping Campden in Gloucestershire, England, from a woman named Mary Clayton.
Once in Royal David's City is a Christmas carol originally written as a poem by Cecil Frances Alexander. The carol was first published in 1848 in her hymnbook Hymns for Little Children. A year later, the English organist Henry Gauntlett discovered the poem and set it to music.
Carols for Choirs is a collection of choral scores, predominantly of Christmas carols and hymns, first published in 1961 by Oxford University Press. It was edited by Sir David Willcocks and Reginald Jacques, and is a widely used source of carols in the British Anglican tradition and among British choral societies. A second volume was published in 1970, edited by David Willcocks and John Rutter, and the collection is now available in five volumes. A compendium edition was published later. In addition to music for Christmas, the collection also offers works that are suitable for other Christian festivals such as Advent and Epiphany.
The Cambridge Singers is an English mixed voice chamber choir formed in 1981 by their director John Rutter with the primary purpose of making recordings under their own label Collegium Records.
The "Sans Day Carol", also known as "St. Day Carol" and "The Holly Bears a Berry", is a traditional Cornish Christmas carol named after the Cornish village of St Day, where it was found around the turn of the twentieth century. The song, which is listed as no. 35 in the Oxford Book of Carols, is very closely related to the more famous carol "The Holly and the Ivy". According to the Roud Folk Song Index, the "Sans Day Carol" and "The Holly and the Ivy" are variants of the same song.
"Gabriel's Message" or "The angel Gabriel from heaven came" is a Basque Christmas folk carol about the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary by the archangel Gabriel that she would become the mother of Jesus Christ the Son of God.
The Wexford Carol is a traditional religious Irish Christmas carol originating from County Wexford and, specifically, Enniscorthy. The subject of the song is the nativity of Jesus Christ.
Christmas Night is a Christmas-themed album by The Cambridge Singers conducted by John Rutter. Most songs are sung a cappella, on others the choir is accompanied by The City of London Sinfonia. It was first released in 1987 on Rutter’s label Collegium Records, and remastered by John Rutter in 2020.
"The Three Kings", or "Three Kings From Persian Lands Afar", is a Christmas carol by the German composer Peter Cornelius. He set "Die Könige" for a vocal soloist, accompanied by Philip Nicolai's hymn "Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern", which he erroneously thought was an Epiphany hymn. In fact, it is an Advent hymn in which the morning star is an allegory for the arrival of Jesus, not the Star of Bethlehem. In Cornelius' original second setting, the accompaniment was played on a piano but the English organist Ivor Atkins later arranged the accompaniment for choir, with the choir singing the words of the original hymn. The German words have been translated into English by H.N. Bate. The carol describes the visit of the Biblical Magi to the Infant Jesus during the Nativity and is also used as an Epiphany anthem.
Ruth Holton is an English soprano singer.
The Animals' Christmas is the sixth post-Simon & Garfunkel studio album and the first Christmas album by vocalist Art Garfunkel, and is a collaborative album with Amy Grant, released in October 1986 by Columbia Records. The album was written by Jimmy Webb and features vocals by Garfunkel, Grant, and Wimbledon King's College Choir. The Animals' Christmas tells the story of the Nativity of Jesus from the perspective of the animals present. The album received positive reviews, with one writer calling it "one of the best Christmas albums of the '80s." The album failed to chart.
Angels' Carol is a popular sacred choral piece by John Rutter for Christmas. He wrote his own text, beginning "Have you heard the sound of the angel voices", three stanzas with the refrain "Gloria in excelsis Deo". It has been part of recordings of collections of Christmas music, including one conducted by the composer.
The "Shepherd's Pipe Carol" is a modern Christmas carol composed by John Rutter. Rutter composed the carol whilst he was an undergraduate at university in 1966 with it being published a year later at the behest of David Willcocks.
Christmas Lullaby is a popular sacred choral composition by John Rutter, a lullaby for Christmas. He wrote his own text, beginning "Clear in the darkness", three stanzas with the refrain "Ave Maria". Rutter scored the piece for four vocal parts (SATB) and piano, adding other versions. He composed it on a 1989 commission from The Bach Choir for the celebration of the 70th birthday of their conductor David Willcocks. It was first performed at the choir's Christmas concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London, an event that Rutter knew from being a member of the audience as a boy.
"For the beauty of the earth" is a sacred choral composition by John Rutter, a setting of the hymn of the same name by Folliott S. Pierpoint. The work was published by Oxford University Press in 1980. Recorded several times, it has been described as "one of Rutter's more popular, enduring anthems".
O magnum mysterium is a motet for choir a cappella by Morten Lauridsen. He set the text of "O magnum mysterium", a Gregorian chant for Christmas, in 1994. The composition, performed and recorded often, made Lauridsen famous. It was described as expressive ethereal sounds in imperturbable calmness.
References
- ↑ "Rutter: Music for Christmas". Hyperion Records. Retrieved 2019-11-26.
- ↑ Rutter, John (2015-06-18). Candlelight Carol. SATBB Vocal Score (John Rutter Anniversary ed.). Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-340738-1.
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