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 Christian church worship, and sometimes accompanied by a dance. A caroller is someone who sings carols, and is said to be carolling.
"Good King Wenceslas" is a Christmas carol that tells a story of a Bohemian king who goes on a journey, braving harsh winter weather, to give alms to a poor peasant on the Feast of Stephen. During the journey, his page is about to give up the struggle against the cold weather, but is enabled to continue by following the king's footprints, step for step, through the deep snow. The legend is based on the life of the Saint Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia (907–935), who was not a king in his lifetime but had that status conferred on him after his death.
"The First Nowell", modernised as "The First Noel" ", is a traditional English Christmas carol with Cornish origins most likely from the early modern period, although possibly earlier. It is listed as number 682 in the Roud Folk Song Index.
Piae Cantiones ecclesiasticae et scholasticae veterum episcoporum is a collection of late medieval Latin songs first published in 1582. It was compiled by Jacobus Finno, a clergyman who was headmaster of the cathedral school at Turku. Publication was undertaken by Theodoricus Petri Rutha of Nyland, who lived from about 1560 to about 1630. He came from an aristocratic family in Finland, and was educated at Rostock.
Gaudete is a sacred Christmas carol, thought to have been composed in the 16th century. It was published in Piae Cantiones, a collection of Finnish/Swedish sacred songs published in 1582. No music is given for the verses, but the standard tune comes from older liturgical books.
"We Wish You a Merry Christmas" is an English Christmas carol, listed as numbers 230 and 9681 in the Roud Folk Song Index. The famous version of the carol is from the English West Country.
"In the Bleak Midwinter" is a poem by the English poet Christina Rossetti, commonly performed as a Christmas carol. The poem was published, under the title "A Christmas Carol", in the January 1872 issue of Scribner's Monthly, and was first collected in book form in Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress and Other Poems.
The New Oxford Book of Carols is a collection of vocal scores of Christmas carols. It was first published in 1992 by Oxford University Press (OUP) and was edited by Hugh Keyte and Andrew Parrott. It is a widely used source of carols in among choirs and church congregations in Britain.
A Ceremony of Carols, Op. 28 is an extended choral composition for Christmas by Benjamin Britten scored for three-part treble chorus, solo voices, and harp. The text, structured in eleven movements, is taken from The English Galaxy of Shorter Poems, edited by Gerald Bullett. It is principally in Middle English, with some Latin and Early Modern English. It was composed in 1942 on Britten's sea voyage from the United States to England.
The "Sussex Carol" is a Christmas carol popular in Britain, sometimes referred to by its first line "On Christmas night all Christians sing". Its words were first published by Luke Wadding, a 17th-century Irish bishop, in a work called Small Garland of Pious and Godly Songs (1684). It is unclear whether Wadding wrote the song or was recording an earlier composition.
The Oxford Book of Carols is a collection of vocal scores of Christmas carols and carols of other seasons. It was first published in 1928 by Oxford University Press and was edited by Percy Dearmer, Martin Shaw and Ralph Vaughan Williams. It became a widely used source of carols among choirs and church congregations in Britain.
"Bethlehem Down" is a Christmas carol for SATB choir composed in 1927 by British composer Peter Warlock (1894–1930)—the pseudonym of Philip Arnold Heseltine. It is set to a poem written by journalist and poet Bruce Blunt (1899–1957). Warlock and Blunt wrote the carol to finance an "immortal carouse" over Christmas in 1927. The pair submitted the carol to The Daily Telegraph's annual Christmas carol contest and won. It is characterised by modal harmony with chromatic inflections. The musicologist Barry Smith described "Bethlehem Down" as the finest of all of Warlock's choral music.
"Resonet in laudibus" is a 14th-century Christmas carol which was widely known in medieval Europe, and is still performed today. Although probably earlier, in manuscript form it first appears in the Moosburg gradual of 1360 and occurs in several 15th, 16th and 17th century printed collections from both Catholic and Lutheran traditions.
"In dulci jubilo" is a traditional Christmas carol. In its original setting, the carol is a macaronic text of German and Latin dating from the Middle Ages. Subsequent translations into English, such as J. M. Neale's arrangement "Good Christian Men, Rejoice" have increased its popularity, and Robert Pearsall's 1837 macaronic translation is a mainstay of the Christmas Nine Lessons and Carols repertoire. J. S. Bach's chorale prelude based on the tune is also a traditional postlude for Christmas services.
"Of the Father's heart begotten" alternatively known as "Of the Father's love begotten" is a doctrinal hymn based on the Latin poem "Corde natus" by the Roman poet Aurelius Prudentius, from his Liber Cathemerinon beginning "Da puer plectrum" which includes the Latin stanzas listed below.
Thomas Helmore was a choirmaster, writer about singing and author and editor of hymns and carols.
"Puer nobis nascitur", usually translated as "Unto Us Is Born a Son", is a medieval Christmas carol found in a number of manuscript sources—the 14th-century German Moosburg Gradual and a 15th-century Trier manuscript. The Moosburg Gradual itself contained a number of melodies derived from the 12th- and 13th-century organum repertories of Notre Dame de Paris and the Abbey of Saint Martial, Limoges, suggesting that its antiquity may be much greater.
"Quempas" is the shortened title of the Latin Christmas carol "Quem pastores laudavere", popular in Germany in the sixteenth century, and used as a generic term for Christmas songs in a German caroling tradition. Quempas is also the name of a collection of old carols published by Bärenreiter since 1930.
"Jesus Christus nostra salus" is a hymn in Ecclesiastical Latin celebrating the Eucharist. It first is confirmed to have appeared in a manuscript in 1410. For a long time it was attributed to Johannes Hus, but was more likely written by the Archbishop of Prague, Jan of Jenštejn. Several hymns in different languages were derived from it, among others Martin Luther's "Jesus Christus, unser Heiland, der von uns den Gotteszorn wandt".
