Bill’s Midwinter Music Blog

[Notes: Today’s posting of Wee Robin’s Yule Sang and its backstory is a perfect example of the principle that work expands to fill the time available for its completion. It proves that I have had a lot of time to spare since I completed this year’s mailouts well ahead of schedule. I said on Christmas that that would be my last music posting of the year, but that doesn’t prevent me from giving you this spoken word one. (But don’t speculate that there will be another surprise tomorrow - there won’t be.)

Also, last year I rather enjoyed writing my “reminiscence” essays documenting my intentions, processes, and lessons learned from each year’s musical compilations. Even though I know that part of my writing is much more for my own satisfaction than for you readers, below the information about this spoken word track I will do the same about my compilation of this year’s series of songs, tunes, research, and musings.]

Wee Robin’s Yule Sang

This story was collected by Robert Burn’s biographer Robert Chambers in about 1850 when he was working on his four-volume The Life and Works of Robert Burns. Chambers apparently did not include the story in that work. But he did publish it soon thereafter in an expanded edition of his already-massive folklore collection Popular Rhymes of Scotland (which had first been published in 1826).

The story came from the poet’s youngest sister Isabella (1771–1858), known as Isbal by the family, who said that this was one of the stories that her brother Rabbie had made up to entertain his younger siblings when he was about 20 years old and the family lived at Lochlea Farm. That would have been between 1777 and 1784, when Isbal was 6 to 13 years old. She was almost 80 years old when she recited the story for Chambers. Her married name was Isabella Begg.

Chambers interviewed Mrs. Begg several times between 1847 and 1850 as he compiled what he intended to be a definitive collection of Robert Burns’ writings. By that time Robert Burns (1759-1796) was widely recognized as having been Scotland’s greatest poet, and any newly-discovered work by him, even juvenilia and with questionable provenance, was considered to be an important discovery.

Isabella was a useful and important source of information for Chambers, even though some of the factual information that she gave him in those elder years later proved to be incorrect. She said that she was telling the story as she remembered having heard it from her brother, but since she had been a the mother of nine children herself, and was a teacher during much of her life as a widow, she had probably told the story many times herself over the years.

There is no other source for this story, and since it is neither a poem nor a song but was told as children’s storytelling when he was quite young, it is not typical of Burns’ later work. Some Burns scholars suspect that while the story itself probably originated from her brother, Isabella may well have changed the wording over time to suit her own storytelling style. You can judge for yourself whether this is fine storytelling for children regardless of who may have written it.

Soon after Chambers published the story in his large hardcover collection of Popular Rhymes, in 1860 the story was republished (with attribution to Chambers) by Griffith and Farran individually in an illustrated book under the name The Robin’s Yule Song, who described the story as being “by Robert Burns as retold by Isabella Burns”.

The idea of a European robin (which are much smaller than our North American ones) marrying a wren was already and old scenario, first found in literature from around 1400. In the mid-18th century, when Isbal says she leaned the story from her older brother, the Mother Goose stories were very popular, and one of those was a long poem (that is usually presented in much-shortened form) entitled The Marriage of Cock Robin to Jenny Wren. The story attributed to Robert Burns is basically an alternate backstory for that marriage.

This rendition is by Scottish folksinger Alistair McDonald and is from his 1996 album Honest Poverty. I don’t have that album (I got the recording from YouTube) and can’t find McDonald’s liner notes that might indicate his source for the words online. But, except for a slightly abridged beginning and end, they appear to be either from the Chambers volume, the 1860 illustrated single-story booklet, or from subsequent inexpensive chapbooks that were published by Edinburgh’s non-profit Saltire Society whose objective is to preserve Scottish culture. In 1908 a booklet with this poem was published with the same title that Alistair McDonald gives to this recording - Wee Robin’s Yule Sang. Perhaps that is a minor variant that he is reciting here.

By the way, if anyone recognizes the tune that accompanies this story please let me know what it is; I’d like to include that information here. [Update: Thank you to Denis Donnelly and Beth Skala for recognizing that this seems to be the same melody as When Johnny Comes Marching Home. After having that pointed out I did a little digging into that song’s history and found out that, by way of a pub song that was popular in America at that time, it is the an old Scottish and English tune John Anderson, My Jo for which Robert Burns wrote one variant of its lyrics. For more info about the tune and its earlier history, see here and here.]

I got this text of the 1860 Griffith and Farran booklet from the story’s Wikipedia entry, and the etchings by “W.F.F” and glossary that appeared in that same book from Google Books.

THERE was an auld grey Poussie Baudrons, (Pussy cat) and she gaed awa’ down by a water-side, and there she saw a wee Robin Redbreast happin’ on a brier; and Poussie Baudrons says: “Where’s tu gaun, wee Robin?” And wee Robin says: “I’m gaun awa’ to the king to sing him a sang this guid Yule morning.”

And Poussie Baudrons says: “Come here, wee Robin, and I’ll let you see a bonny white ring round thy neck.” But wee Robin says: “Na, na! grey Poussie Baudrons; na, na! Ye worry’t the wee mousie, but ye’se no worry me.”

So wee Robin flew awa’ till he came to a fail fauld-dike (Turf wall enclosing a field), and there he saw a grey greedy gled (Kite) sitting. And grey greedy gled says: “Where’s tu gaun, wee Robin?” And wee Robin says: “I’m gaun’ to the king to sing him a sang this guid Yule morning.”

And grey greedy gled says: “Come here, wee Robin, and I’ll let you see a bonny feather in my wing.” But wee Robin says: “Na, na! grey greedy gled; na, na! Ye pookit (pluck, strip) a’ the wee lintie (Linnet), but ye’se no pook me.”

So wee Robin flew an’ till be came to the cleuch o’ a craig (Face of a rock) and there he saw slee Tod Lowrie (Mister Fox) sitting. And slee Tod Lowrie says: “Where’s tu gaun, wee Robin?” And wee Robin says: “I’m gaun awa’ to the king to sing him a sang this guid Yule morning.”

And slee Tod Lowrie says: “Come here, wee Robin, and I’ll let ye see a bonny spot on the tap o’ my tail” But wee Robin says: “Na, na! slee Tod Lowrie; Na, na! Ye worry’t the wee lammie; but ye’se no worry me.”

So wee Robin flew awa’ till he came to a bonny burn-side, and there he saw a wee callant (boy) sitting. And the wee callant says: “Where’s tu gaun, wee Robin?” And wee Robin says: “I’m gaun awa’ to the king to sing him a sang this guid Yule morning.”

And the wee callant says: “Come here, wee Robin, and I’ll gie ye a wheen grand moolins (some crumbs) out o’ my pooch.” But wee Robin says: “Na, na! wee callant; na, na! Ye speldert the gowdspink; but ye’se no spelder me.”

So wee Robin flew awa’ till he came to the king, and there he sat on a winnock sole (Window sill) and sang the king a bonny sang. And the king says to the queen: “What’ll we gie to wee Robin for singing us this bonny sang?” And the queen says to the king: “I think we’ll gie him the wee wran to be his wife.”

So wee Robin and the wee wran were married, and the king, and the queen, and a’ the court danced at the waddin’; syne he flew awa’ hame to his ain water-side, and happit on a brier.

And here is a retelling (not a translation) of the story in an 18th century Mother Goose style of English by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey that was posted here:

Once upon a time there was an old gray Cat and she was down by the waterside when the trees and ground were white with snow. And there she saw a wee, wee Robin Redbreast hopping upon a branch, so Cat said to him: “Where are you going, Robin Redbreast, this frosty Yuletide weather?”

Then the wee, wee Robin said to the Cat, “I am going to the King to sing him a song this good Yule morning.”

And the gray Cat replied, “Go not yet. Come here, Robin Redbreast, and I will let you see the bonny white necklace I wear around my neck.”

But the wee, wee Robin said, “No, no, gray Cat. You may show the bonny white necklace that you wear around your neck to the little mice, but not to me.”

Then off flew the wee, wee Robin until he came to a wall of turf and there he saw a greedy Hawk sitting and watching to see what small birds passed by. And the greedy Hawk called to him and said, “Where are you going, Robin Redbreast, this frosty Yuletide weather?”

Then the wee, wee Robin said to the Hawk, “I am going to the King to sing him a song this good Yule morning.”

And the greedy Hawk replied, “Go not yet. Come here, Robin Redbreast, and I’ll let you see a bonny green feather that I wear in my wing.”

But the wee, wee Robin said, “No, no, greedy Hawk. You have pecked all the tiny birds but you’ll not peck me.”

Then off flew the wee, wee Robin until he came to a hollow in the hillside and there he saw a sly Fox sitting. The sly Fox saw Robin and called to him, “Where are you going, Robin Redbreast, this frosty Yuletide weather?”

Then the wee, wee Robin said to the Fox, “I am going to the King to sing him a song this good Yule morning.”

And the sly Fox replied, “Go not yet. Come here, Robin Redbreast, and I will show you a bonny spot on the tip of my tail.”

But the wee, wee Robin said, “No, no, sly Fox. You may show the bonny spot on the tip of your tail to the lambs but not to me.”

Then off flew the wee, wee Robin until he came to a little shepherd Lad sitting beside his cot. The little shepherd Lad saw Robin and called to him, “Where are you going, Robin Redbreast, this frosty Yuletide weather?”

Then the wee, wee Robin said to the shepherd Lad, “I am going to the King to sing him a song this good Yule morning.”

And the shepherd Lad replied, “Go not yet. Come here and I will give you some crumbs from my pouch.”

But the wee, wee Robin said, “No, no, little shepherd Lad. You caught the goldfinch but you’ll not catch me.”

Then off flew the wee, wee Robin until he came to the King, and he sat down upon a plowshare just outside of the King’s window, and he sang him a pretty song because it was such a good Yule morning.

The King was very much pleased indeed and he said to the Queen, “What shall we give the wee, wee Robin Redbreast for singing us such a pretty song?” The Queen thought and thought and at last she decided. “I think we will give the wee, wee Robin Redbreast a wee Wren to be his wife,” the Queen said to the King.

So the wee, wee Robin Redbreast and the wee Wren were married and the King, and the Queen, and all the court, and the whole countryside danced at their wedding. And after the wedding the two flew home to the Robin’s own waterside.

There is a more recent retelling of the story in modern English called The Wee Robin’s Christmas Song. It was written by Jennie Ellis Burdick, but personally I think that in the context of Scotland, whether in the late 18th century, when Burns wrote it or in the mid-19th century when his sister Isbal recalled it for Robert Chambers, the word “Yule” might better be translated as Hogmanay, or New Year’s Day since that was the only allowed core festive day for the midwinter holiday season during those times.

On the other hand, celebration of both Christmastide and Yuletide (in the pre-Christian sense of it being an auspicious time of year) were both strictly forbidden by both the Scottish Kirk and by Scottish laws. Those prohibitions were strictly enforced, and in both cases even a minor violation of the prohibition was considered to be a sacrilege. So I suppose those two markers markers of Midwinter do have something in common. And note that the above Glossary from the 1860 booklet of Wee Robin’s Yule Sang defines Yule as being “the name given to Christmas”.

I’ll include a whole essay about the banning of Christmas in Scotland and among Scots abroad in next year’s Bill’s Midwinter Music postings. It was different and much more long-lasting than the prohibitions in England and New England (even though it had similar unintended consequences.)

Reflections on this year’s Sampler-making

This year, I am proud and happy to say, was the most problem-free year I’ve had for this project since my transition from CDs to this emailed “musical Advent calendar” format. I think I’m finally adjusting to the new medium, and getting the right balance for it as a satisfying and enjoyable annual seasonal creative binge

I developed over 20 annual Christmas and Midwinter music Samplers when they were in a CD format, and I got quite well adjusted to that medium. It presented obvious challenges and opportunities for arranging a full 80 minute compilation, often on a particular theme. It also put the task into a particular time-frame. I wanted to get my CD “Christmas cards” into the mail by the beginning of December. So all of the planning, music selection and writing, - the creative parts of the project - were usually done in September through November, and in a couple of years the creative part was done even earlier in the seasons.

In my first few years of the new “musical Advent card” era I sometimes got my timing off kilter. There is far less of the dull drudgery, but I often found myself doing the creative work much closer to the hard deadlines of each day’s postings because I kept getting side-tracked by the fun stuff like rushing down research rabbit holes. That creates a certain adrenaline rush excitement, but also stress.

This year, I had been generating ideas all year, and began doing final selections and writing in early November. By the end of that month I had well over half of the days’ postings ready to go except for final wordsmithing. By mid-December I was still well ahead of the deadlines and I could scale my creative binge back to a very relaxed pace (which is what enabled this bonus posting.)

Separate from the seasonality of the project, this medium calls for other creative differences from producing 80 minute CDs. There is no reason for each day’s listening experience to be cohesive with the day before it, or the day after. Gone is any rationale for an annual theme, and as I hope you have experienced, even individual day’s sets don’t need to be thematic for the music to sound pleasing together.

I am very happy with this year’s 7-10 minute length target, and I’ve done a great job of sticking within my self-imposed ten-minute limit. Not counting the intended double-set on Christmas Day, I only went overtime once, and that was 10:02 on the Winter Solstice.

Besides the length of the sets, you may or may not have noticed a few other changes in my format this year. Whenever possible I tried to track down the lyrics online for every song, and sometimes adjusting them to how they were sung in the rendition they accompany. Sometimes that was easy, and sometimes it could be rather time-consuming. Hopefully that can make these postings more enjoyable for you, and useful for people who stumble upon my posts while doing their own research about these seasonal songs and tunes. (One of my objectives is to leave a lasting legacy in that regard.)

I also put time into searching online for a thematic image for each day’s posting – usually a painting – and telling you it’s source. But that was at the expense of not spending time searching for pictures of the performers or composers of the music. I’m not sure if that was a good trade-off. This year I listened again to my previous years’ postings, and I often found that I liked seeing pictures the singers and musicians. (I usually tried to find photos of them near the approximate age when the recording was made.) I will be reconsidering this for next year, but finding such photos can be time-consuming. I would appreciate your feedback on the matter.

Looking toward the future, I’ve made a few enquiries and people seem to agree that they would prefer that I return to middle-of-the-night mail-out times, enabling listening to the music at the start out the day for those who want to do that. That also better fits my metaphor that this music is a vaccine immunizing you from the shopping mall Christmas music that you will inevitably encounter later in the day.

In addition to this bonus mail-out, I’ve already used the time I saved by getting ahead of schedule this year to develop a chronological list of all of the renditions that I have posted online here, along with brief statements about the kind of information that accompanies them. (Creating an alphabetized index would be tricky since so many of the songs and tunes have alternate names, and titles in various languages.)

The searchable list was mainly intended to be for my own use in music selection, to avoid inadvertent repetitions, and to assist me in finding my past research findings. I also have another list of the topics of my essays, and essay-length music notes. I will post them here for you to use on my archive/blog when I have the lists ready.

So, as you can see, I’m already looking forward to posting this kind of music again next year.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit midwintermusic.substack.com

Happy holidays,and a harmonious New Year!

Playlist

* Wake Up! - Maddy Prior - 3:24

* Mary Had a Baby - The Nields - 1:27

* Joseph, lieber Joseph mein - Boston Camerata – 1:19

* Es is ein Rose entsprungen - James Oxley and Ensemble Galilei - 3:55

* Rise Up Shepherd and Follow - children from music school - 1:15

* Mennonite Doxology (aka 606) - The Howard Stauffer family - 1:48

* Angels We Have Heard on High - Bermuda Salvation Army Band - 2:33

* Rolling Downward - John Kirkpatrick - 3:43

Music notes

Wake Up! is from Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band’s 2007 album Ringing the Changes. The Carnival Band was originally formed in 1985 as an early music ensemble. From its beginning, the British folk music legend Maddy Prior, who is known primarily as a folk-rock lead singer, joined them as vocalist and headliner for their pre-Christmas tours and associated albums.

Initially they only did old songs performed with appropriate old style accompaniment. But both Maddy and the band members are accomplished and creative musicians. In 2005 they began to write new seasonal songs and tunes and performing those pieces in contemporary styles. According to this album’s liner notes: “Some of us were old hands at song writing, for others it was a new experience, but the venture was by and large collaborative with ideas brought to rehearsal and the workload shared around.”

The music for this song is credited to mandolinist and guitar player Steno Vitale, and the words to Steno, Andrew Watts (who can play anything that you blow into), and bass player Jub Davis. Here are the lyrics from the liner notes:

Have you heard the news, the angels are singingA baby boy is born in Bethlehem town.Cattle gather ‘round the celestial stranger,Asleep in the manger, a king with no crown.

[Chorus] Wake up! Wake up! There’s a new day beginning. Wake up! Wake up! Don’t you know that it’s time? Out in the world there’s a new light that’s shining, Follow the light, leave the darkness behind.

Shepherds on the hill watching for danger,Saw a shining light, fell down in fear;Angels in the sky said “Don’t be afraid now,Go find the babe now, your destiny’s clear.” Chorus

Wise men from afar, travel worn and weary,Following a star, feeling alone,In a foreign land the strangers are seekingA boy who will be the king and carry them home. Chorus

You can find a path that leads you through the mountains,You can find a road that leads you to the sea,Just because your lost don’t mean you’re abandonedReach out your hand, and you will be free. Chorus

Mary Had a Baby This is a spiritual that is in Ruth Crawford Seeger’s 1953 songbook American Folk Songs for Christmas. She got it from St. Helena Island Spirituals, a songbook published in 1925 by the Penn Normal Industrial School on St. Helena Island off the coast of South Carolina. It is basically a zipper song, i.e., performers can easily improvise their own verses - they don’t even need a rhyming couplet - and in her songbook Seeger encouraged music teachers to encourage children to add their own creativity for this song.

The Penn School had been founded in 1862 by Quaker and Unitarian missionaries to educate freed and runaway slaves who had fled to that marshy island before and during the American Civil war. The Black inhabitants of St. Helena and other nearby lowland areas are a sub-group of African Americans called the Gullah Geechee who spoke (and some still speak) in a distinctive creole dialect comprised of English and languages from Central and West Africa. I presume that the original version of this song may have been in that language, but one of the roles of the Penn School was to teach English to the islanders and that was the language of the school’s songbook.

This version of the song is performed by Katryna and Nerissa Nield and is from their 2017 album Joy to the World. On my Dec 9, 2022 post you can hear a poignant song that Narissa wrote. But here are the lyrics for this song:

Oh, Mary had a baby, oh Lord.Mary had a baby, oh Lord.Oh, Mary had a baby, Mary had a baby,Mary had a baby, oh Lord.

Born in a stable, oh Lord.

Laid Him in a manger.

She named the baby, Jesus.

Mary had a baby.

Es is ein Rose entsprungen2020 was the thirtieth anniversary of the Early Music group Ensemble Galilei, and they had big plans to celebrate the occasion by issuing a new CD album featuring “a prodigious assortment” of current and former members. “It was going to be amazing.” Then came March, and the worldwide Covid pandemic shutdowns.

With considerable logistical difficulty they still were able to pull together a CD that year called A Solstice Gathering, which is my source for this song. Most of its tracks were recorded in that year, but they also included some previously unreleased recordings they had made in 2017. As far as I can tell, this is one of those tracks. I infer that from the fact that it features guest tenor James Oxley, who lives in England, and recorder and baroque oboe player Kathryn Montoya, who doesn’t.

The late song historian William Studwell describes Es is ein Rose entsprungen as being musically one of the finest Christmas songs of all time. It is of anonymous medieval German origin from during the time when the “Marian movement” swept through Christendom from the late 11th to the 13th centuries. That was a peoples’ movement that the Roman Catholic church tried to suppress. The people were giving Jesus’ mother Mary a special heavenly status that exceeded that of other saints. It closely resembled the Goddess worship from the still-recent pagan times.

The church only accepted the Marian movement as not being heresy on the understanding that Mary could be venerated (not worshiped!) as an intermediary to convey one’s prayers to Jesus. Later, the Catholic church seems to have fully accepted the movement. My elementary school years were as a student at a Catholic parochial school. I can only vaguely recall being taught that fine distinction about praying to Mary in Catechism class. Like all Catholics I had a rosery that guided a cycle of prayers that included 53 Hail Marys and only 6 Our Fathers.

Here is part of what William Studwell has to say about Es is ein Rose entsprungen in his 1995 book A Christmas Carol Reader, my copy of which is (quite literally) fallen apart:

The rose imagery of this carol, which is by no means unusual in its era, is an allusion to Mary as a blooming plant. Ironically, this excellent allegorical device may have delayed the publication of the carol.

After the beginning of the Reformation in the sixteenth century, songs dealing with Mary were either ignored or altered by the Lutherans. In this instance the former option was apparently exercised. Despite the adversities posed by [the Reformation movement] and by delay in publication of as much as two centuries, Lo, How a Rose survived because of its well-crafted lyrics and, most of all, because of its limited-range yet passionate and exquisite melody.

It was not printed until around 1600, though by 1609 it received a tremendous boost when it was harmonized by the famous German composer Michael Prætorius (1571-1621). That arrangement, which is the one still most commonly used today, helped considerably in the publicizing of the carol, and also led some persons to erroneously attribute the carol to Prætorius himself.

Of all that could be said or done, perhaps the highest tribute to Lo, How a Rose was the adoption of the melody by the great German composer Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) as the basis for an 1896 chorale prelude. To be associated with such a master after a four-century interlude is certainly one sign of excellence. To be well-liked and frequently sung after five centuries of considerable cultural change is an even clearer indicator.

You can find the German lyrics here, but below are five verses of the Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming English translation (out of the over a dozen translations that the song has been given to English alone, and at least 23 verses that have accreted to it over the years):

Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming, from tender stem hath sprung! Of Jesse’s lineage coming, as men of old have sung. It came, a flow’ret bright, Amid the cold of winter, when half spent was the night.

Isaiah ‘twas foretold it, the Rose I have in mind; With Mary we behold it, the virgin mother kind. To show God’s love aright, She bore to men a Savior, when half spent was the night.

The shepherds heard the story proclaimed by angels bright, How Christ, the Lord of glory was born on earth this night. To Bethlehem they sped And in the manger found Him, as angel heralds said.

This Flow’r, whose fragrance tender with sweetness fills the air, Dispels with glorious splendor the darkness everywhere; True Man, yet very God, From sin and death He saves us, and lightens ev’ry load.

O Savior, Child of Mary, who felt our human woe, O Savior, King of glory, who dost our weakness know; Bring us at length we pray, To the bright courts of Heaven, and to the endless day!

Joseph, lieber Joseph meinThis tune is that of another traditional Weihnachtslieder, the German word equivalent to an English Christmas carol or a French noël. There are national differences between the Christmas folk songs of those countries. Except for England’s wassails, almost all of its traditional Christmas carols relate to the Nativity story, but while those carols mostly date back only to the 19th century, French and German ones tend to be much older dating back to the 17th century or earlier. French ones tend to be about shepherds, and German ones tend to be quiet songs that emulate Mary’s lullabies.

As can be heard in its lyrics (English translation below) this is another Marian song that dates to about the same time as Lo est ein Rose entsprungen. The composer Johann Walter (1496-1570), who was a close friend and associate of Martin Luther, gave the simple folk song a 5-part polyphonic arrangement. This is that choral setting, but played on medieval instruments by The Boston Camerata which was founded in 1954. It is from their 1974 vinyl album A Renaissance Christmas, but I got it from a 1986 re-release on CD.

Unlike many of the other Protestant leaders, such as the Geneva reformer John Calvin, Martin Luther was a strong supporter of both congregational and choir singing, although in people’s everyday language not in the form of continuing the Catholic’s Latin hymns and Gregorian chants. He believed music was a divine gift, second only to theology, that could move hearts, educate people of all ages, and transform church services into vibrant, understandable expressions of faith. You can read more about Luther’s views on the relationship between music and religion in this blog post.Rise Up Shepherd and FollowThis is another song from Ruth Crawford’s songbook. In this case it came from a 1909 songbook compiled by Thomas P. Fenner for the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Hampton, Virginia, called Religious Folk Songs of the Negro, As Sung on the Plantations. However, based on the factors that I discussed in my Dec 7 post I think this particular song is more likely to be a jubilee spiritual sung by freed slaves rather than one from the plantation days. The Hampton school was established in 1870 to provide education for former slaves and their children. It has evolved to become Hampton University.

Ruth Crawford Seeger died shortly before her songbook was published. Soon her three daughters, Peggy, Barbara and Penny, and son Mike began to work on recording an album of songs from their mother’s book for the Folkway’s label. It was ready for release in 1955, and like the songbook the album is titled American Folk Songs for Christmas. (Note: This recording should not be confused with a more polished 2-disc Rounder Records album by the same name that the sisters recorded with their brother Mike in 1989 with the same memorial purpose.)

This selection is from the original 1955 album and is sung by a group of children from the South Boston Music School. I suspect that one of the daughters was a music teacher there at the time.

There’s a star in the East on Christmas morn Rise up, shepherd, and followIt will lead to the place where the Savior’s born Rise up, shepherd, and follow.

Leave your sheep and leave your lambs Rise up, shepherd, and followLeave your ewes and leave your rams Rise up, shepherd, and follow.

Follow, follow Rise up, shepherd, and follow. Follow the Star of Bethlehem Rise up, shepherd, and follow.

If you take good heed to the angel’s words Rise up, shepherd, and followYou’ll forget your flocks, you’ll forget your herds Rise up, shepherd, and follow

Follow, follow Rise up, shepherd, and follow. Follow the Star of Bethlehem; Rise up, shepherd, and follow.

Mennonite Doxology Also known by the names Dedication Anthem, Mennonite Anthem, or most commonly simply by its number 606 in the old 1969 Mennonite hymnbook. It this isn’t really a Christmas hymn. It is an acknowledgement of faith that is commonly sung by members of Mennonite congregations any time of the year, whether gathering in a church service or just socially. But it certainly sounds Christmasy to my ears, especially since it adds “Halleluja” to it’s “Amen”.

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;Praise Him, all creatures here below;Praise Him above, ye heav’nly host;Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.Hallelujah, amen.

The history of its lyrics are easy to trace: They were written by the hymnist Thomas Ken in 1674 when he was the pastor/chaplain for Winchester College. That school was established in 1382 and is still the oldest “public” boarding school in England. Ken later went on to become bishop of Bath and Wells. According to his biography on hymnary.org:

He was a man of conscience and independent mind who did not shirk from confrontations with royalty. When King Charles II came to visit Winchester, he took along his mistress, the famous actress Nell Gwynne. Ken was asked to provide lodging for her. The story is told that Ken quickly declared his house under repair and had a builder take off the roof!

He later was dismissed from the court at The Hague [where he had been appointed chaplain to Princess Mary] when he protested a case of immorality. Then, later in 1688, Bishop Ken refused to read King James II’s Declaration of Indulgence in the churches, which granted greater religious freedom in England, and he was briefly imprisoned in the Tower of London. A few years later he refused to swear allegiance to King William, and he lost his bishopric.

The history of the melody and musical arrangement of this song is more complicated. It began as a tune attributed to the English cellist and composer Samual Stanley (1767-1822), which was made into an 1822 choral arrangement by the Boston composer (and hater of the use of folk harmonies for hymns) Lowell Mason. Mennonite Joseph Funk adapted Masson’s arrangement to make it more lively, and included it in his 1847 hymnal A Compilation of Genuine Church Music, which was changed to a shape-note songbook in 1851 and renamed Harmonia Sacra.

From there, Lowell Mason’s version became a widely-used arrangement for church choirs, and still appears in some hymnals today, but Funk’s lively arrangement became largely forgotten.

Skip ahead to the late 1960s when the Mennonite church decided it was time to update its official 1927 hymnal which did not include the song. They decided to add a slightly revised version of the Mennonite arranger Joseph Funk’s hymn near the end of their new hymnal. It was primarily included for historical interest, but also thinking that it would be a challenging piece for church choirs to include in their repertoires.

The editors never expected this to be sung by congregations. But they have taken to singing it, and doing so “lustily and with good courage” (which is Methodist co-founder John Wesley’s 1761 instruction about how to how to sing hymns.) It is so universally sung by them that it is often now jokingly referred to as the Mennonite National Anthem.

A more recent updating of the official Mennonite hymnal involved some slight changes by the contemporary composer Joseph Barlowe, and the editors chose to put his name on it as the arranger. That is why you usually see the hymn credited to him, rather than the more deserving and now largely forgotten Joseph Funk. The editors also moved it up in the hymnal to be with other anthems, that changed its number in the book. At first, people could not find it there and that resulted in a huge backlash against the new hymnal.

You can find more information about the history of this song here and here. I found many renditions of it sung by congregations on YouTube, but as you have probably noticed I tend to prefer harmony singing that is more intimate. This rendition of 606 is from a YouTube video shot and recorded by Jean Stauffer using her cellphone. It is being sung at a family gathering of the Howard Stauffer family. It was posted to YouTube back in 2017 and I was only the 194th person to view and listen to it.Angels We Have Heard on HighThis tune version of the famous Christmas carol comes from an undated non-commercial CD, compiled by the Salvation Army’s Canadian and Bermuda Divisions’ Music and Gospel Arts Department as a gift for members. I found it in a thrift store. This arrangement is by Paul Curnow and is played by the Bermuda Divisional Band.

This is another case where the origin story for the song is a bit complicated. Its title is a very loose English translation of the noël’s actual name, Les anges dans nos campagnes (angels on our mountains). The origins of the noël are anonymous, but it is probably from 18th century France. (More about that later.) Interestingly, the song was first documented in England in 1816. In that year the Scottish poet and James Montgomery published a translation and arrangement of it that he called Angels from the Realms of Glory. The original French tune is still associated with that variant. The noël itself was only first documented in France later, in 1855.

Here is where it gets complicated. In 1862 there was a new anonymous translation, and arrangement published credited to the English organist and composer Henry Thomas Smart. Smart had revised the original melody for that version. That translation did not remain popular for long, but in 1916 an American carol collection used Smart’s tune for yet another anonymous translation, and that is the way that we sing the Angels We Have Heard on High today.

Then there is the further ambiguity related to the anonymity of original French noël. Some music historians think that those lyrics are just too darn good to have come from a folk source, and the melody is too sophisticated. Also, they think that the song’s distinctive descending Gloria in excelsis Deo melisma refrain being in Latin suggests that it was written by an unidentified ecclesiastical composer rather than it being a folk noël. (A melisma is the singing of a single syllable over several notes, creating a fluid and ornamental effect.) As I understand it, melasmas were common in early polyphonic church compositions, but they are not generally found in French folk music. So they argue that the composer is still anonymous, but that person was not just some peasant but an ecclesiastical composer.

If you couldn’t follow all that, don’t worry. This is only an instrumental anyway. But it is an instrumental version of one to the top international-class Christmas carols of all time.Rolling DownwardThis is another song that folklore collector Ian Russell collected from Christmastime pub singing around Sheffield and the Peak District. It is a relatively recent song by the traditional carol pub-singing standards there, having been written by the noted American hymnist Robert Lowry in about 1873 which is when it was first published in Sankey’s Sacred Songs and Solos and called The Angels’ Song.

A reporter once asked Dr. Lowry “Do you write the words to fit the music, or the music to fit the words?” His reply was:

I have no method. Sometimes the music comes and the words follow, fitted insensibly to the melody. I watch my moods, and when anything good strikes me, whether words or music, and no matter where I am, at home or on the street, I jot it down. Often the margin of a newspaper or the back of an envelope serves as a notebook.

My brain is a sort of spinning machine, I think, for there is music running through it all the time. I do not pick out my music on the keys of an instrument. The tunes of nearly all the hymns I have written have been completed on paper before I tried them on the organ. Frequently the words of the hymn and the music have been written at the same time.

This version of Rolling Downward is performed by the renowned squeezebox player and teacher, and one of Northern England’s strongest supporters of preserving the region’s musical heritage, John Kirkpatrick. It is from his 2006 Carolling & Crumpets album, available from his website.

Rolling downward through the midnightComes a glorious burst of heavenly song‘Tis a chorus full of sweetnessAnd the singers are an angel throng [Chorus] Glory, glory in the highest On the earth goodwill and peace to men Down the ages, send the echo Let the glad Earth shout againChrist the Savior, God’s anointed,Comes to earth our fearful debt to pay Child of Mary, man of sorrowsLamb of God, that takes our sin away. [Chorus]

Wandering shepherds see the gloryHear the words the shining ones declareAt the manger fall in worshipWhile the music fills the quivering air [Chorus X 2]

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit midwintermusic.substack.com

[Note: Technically, these music posts are audio podcasts. I don’t listen to podcasts myself, but I presume that there is a way that you can get your podcast listening app to turn my archive into a big playlist for your Christmas Eve and Christmas Day listening pleasure. That is a total of over twenty hours of this less familiar seasonal music to listen to, with very few repeats. You can see the whole archive by scrolling down the first column and clicking on the small “see all” button.

You can also tip off your friends who might like this music about this opportunity, and they can subscribe to get on my mailing list for next year.]

Today’s playlist

* At Last I’m Ready for Christmas - Stan Rogers - 3:11

* That Spirit of Christmas - Ray Charles - 5:09

Music notes

At Last I’m Ready for ChristmasAs far as I know, the beloved late Canadian folk singer-songwriter Stan Rogers (1949-’83) only ever recorded two Christmas songs; this lighthearted one and his very poignant First Christmas (away from home). This one is far less well-known than the other one, which has become a folkie Christmas season standard. Perhaps that is because this one is only found on a compilation of concert recordings called From Coffee House to Concert Hall that does not include any of his big hits, which was published by his estate over 15 years after Stan died.

I’m not saying that this is a great song, but it is a rarely heard song by a great singer-songwriter. Here are the lyrics:

Last Boxing Day the wife went out the “White Sales” for to see,In trunk-load lots bought half-price paper and tinsel for the tree.I packed it up for use this year in a box I marked so plain.That stuff would sure be handy now, but it’s never been seen again!

[Chorus] At last I’m ready for Christmas, I’ve even finished the tree, At last I’m ready for Christmas, like I thought I’d never be! With my feet propped up by a good hot fire and a matching inside glow; At last I’m ready for Christmas, with nearly two hours to go!

We swore this year we’d start off early, no need to rush around;The intention was to start in August when the prices still were down!But it was dentist-this and new bike-that and the money melts away;So I had to wait for Christmas bonus and did it all yesterday! [Chorus]

We must be fools, just look at that pile, you can hardly see the tree!We said this year we’d keep things simple, then did our usual spree.But it feels so good when the kids go nuts! It’s worth the toil and strain.These kids are only this young once, and they’ll never be so again. [Chorus]

That Spirit of ChristmasI’ve had this Ray Charles Christmas song in my candidate file for a long time. I had ripped it from his somewhat over-produced 1985 vinyl album called The Spirit of Christmas, which only had a couple of songs that I liked. This track was rather long with its repetitive outro. Length was a significant negative factor back in my space-limited days of cassette and CD Sampler days, and I had to passed up on a lot of good songs. I considered shortening it with a fade out, but doing that to a Ray Charles song, even an overproduced and over-long one, seemed too much like sacrilege.

Now that I am less length constrained, I looked around on YouTube and found this remastered version. While I was at it, I checked the various covers of the song on YouTube that have been recorded by other performers. I must admit that I liked some of their arrangements better than the one that Ray had. But, although the singers tried, none could match the sheer presence and expression of his voice. Oh well, despite being overproduced it is still a great song, and Ray Charles at his Ray Charlesiest.

The song was written by the Motown singers Mabel John, Joel Webster, and Parnell Davison, but Ray Charles’ was the first person to record it.

Christmas is the time of yearFor being with the ones we loveSharing so much joy and cheer.What a wonderful feelin’Watching the ones we loveHaving so much fun.

I was sittin’ by the firesideTaking a walk through the snowListening to a children’s choirSinging songs about JesusThe blessed way that he came to us

[Chorus] Why can’t it remain All through the year. Each day the same. Ah, that’s what I wanna hear It’s truly amazin’, that spirit of Christmas.All the kinfolk gather ‘roundThe lovely Christmas tree.Hearts are glowing full of joy;Sense the gifts that we’re givingAnd the love that we’re living. [Chorus]

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit midwintermusic.substack.com

Introduction

In 1761, the Methodist co-founder John Wesley give this instruction for hymn singing:

Sing lustily and with good courage. Beware of singing as if you were half dead, or half asleep, but lift up your voice with strength. Be no more afraid of your voice now, nor more ashamed of its being heard, then when you sung the songs of Satan.

One of my favourite musical activities is participating in twice-a-month singings held by Victoria Sacred Harp where we mostly sing old-style four-part harmony arrangements from a songbook called the Sacred Harp. The above poster invites you to a special singing school that we will be having this February here in Victoria to introduce folks to participating in singing the style of choral music represented in today’s set.

We are not a performance oriented choir, but a casual local group that sings this way for fun, and part of an international movement reviving historical part-singing that does not follow the standard rules of choral harmonization. We mainly sing from a book called the Sacred Harp.

The above poster invites you to join us a for a day of such singing, with a potluck lunch, coming up in February. You do not need to know how to read music, although admittedly that is helpful. You can learn the songs by ear. Although what we sing are Christian hymns, most of us do not view this as a religious experience. It is participation in an authentic choral folk-singing tradition.

Here’s some background: The latter half of the 17th century was the peak of the English Reformation - it was a time when even the singing of religious songs conflicted with Puritan beliefs and only monophonic congregational singing of the Psalms was permitted by the Church of England. All else was considered to be blasphemy.

The words “sacred harp” are a reference to the argument for the alternative concept - that the human voice is God’s musical instrument and it is meant to be used.

Our hymnbook is a collection of 4-part hymn arrangements composed in the style of choral singing that emerged shortly after the Puritan stranglehold over morality had loosened in New England in about 1750. There was a sudden and huge public demand to participate in harmony singing of what came to be called “hymns”. But after over a century of suppression of singing, there were no music teachers, choir masters, or hymn books. There were also no hymn-writers who had been trained in the classic rules of harmony that had been fine-tuned (sorry about the pun!) back during the Baroque era.

The need for someone to write hymns, and lead congregations in the singing of them, was filled by self-taught amateurs who either did not know the classic rules of harmony or chose to ignore them in accordance with the above-quoted instruction. That is the kind of hymns that are in our Sacred Harp songbooks, and which are in today’s music set. As you can hear in these Christmas hymns, the styles of singing that developed back then were rhythmically more varied and had more robust harmonies than what most people associate with hymn singing today.

Playlist

* Cranbrook (While Shepherds Watched) - Vinyl Café Orchestra - 2:34

* Sherburne (While Shepherds Watched) - 1959 Lomax remastered - 1:50

* Shiloh (Methinks I See an Heav’nly Host) - The Elastic Millennium Choir - 3:06

* Herald Angels - The Oxford Waits & The Mellstock Band - 2:44

Music notes

Cranbrook (While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night)This might be the most fun-to-sing arrangement of While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night. It is mainly notorious for having the same lively tune and semi-fuguing arrangement as the well-known Yorkshire dialect folk song On Ilkla Mooar Baht ‘at (On Ilkley Moor without a hat). But that association is problematic for it as a church hymn. Is a hymn appropriate if people start to giggle when it begins?

Since most people probably learned On Ilkla Mooar Baht ‘at well before they heard this hymn, they might think that this is one of those many cases of church music being based on a folk song. Or they may have heard its legendary origin story that the song was written a group of choirboys who were out on a post-practice ramble and picnic on Ilkley Moor (in West Yorkshire, near Leeds and Bradford) on a chilly day, and they improvised the song based on the melody and choral arrangement of While Shepherds Watched they had been learning.

The tune and arrangement was indeed a hymn written at least 50 years before the humorous folk song with gruesome food-chain logic first appeared. The tune and arrangement, known as Cranbrook (aka Northampton) was written sometime before 1805 by the prolific Methodist, and later Unitarian, hymnist Thomas Clark. Clark’s day-job was as a shoe-maker and he lived his whole life in the city of Canterbury in south-east England,

But Clark did not compose it for Nahum Tate’s poem While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night. He wrote it to accompany Grace ‘tis a charming sound, that was written by the non-conformist poet Philip Doddridge (1702-1751). That lyrics-music combination still appears in various hymnals today.

Clark self-published several hymnals, but they were mainly used only by non-conformist congregations in the south-east of England. It is not at all clear when or how Clark’s tune and arrangement got to Yorkshire, or when his arrangement was first used for While Shepherds Watched. Interestingly, the online sources for information about hymns for use in churches seem to ignore this fun-to-sing arrangement of WSWTFBN, probably because of the giggling problem that I mentioned above.

My guess, and it is only my speculation, is that perhaps it was through pub-singing that the lively and easy-to-sing Cranbrook arrangement got linked to the everyone-knows-the-lyrics Christmas hymn. We have already seen how Yorkshire pub singers near Sheffield preserved early hymns as pub songs, including several versions of While Shepherds Watched, after the churches installed organs and abandoned the rousing early “west gallery” style of singing in favour of silky smooth hymns that conformed to the classic rules of harmony.

During and after that transition the singing of the old hymns as pub-singing was widespread in England, not just around Sheffield, Cornwall and a few other rural places. I can easily envision this hymn-tune combination going viral in pubs from town to town across the country, which would solve the mystery of how it got from Canterbury all the way up to Yorkshire.

The late Dr Arnold Kellett, who studied Yorkshire dialects, determined that On Ilkla Mooar baht ‘at is in the specific dialect of people who live around Halifax, just west of Leeds. He recounts without judgement the legend of the song’s choirboy origins, but noting that no particular town’s church or singing school is identified in the story, and that the folk song’s lyrics were not documented until 1916. At that time it was described as “a dialect song which, for at least two generations past, has been sung in all parts of the West Riding of Yorkshire.” From that information he placed its origin as being not later than 1877.

Continuing with my speculation, the Ilkla Mooar baht ‘at origin legend is possible but with Grace ‘tis a charming sound having been the hymn that the choirboys had been practicing. Alternatively, perhaps there may never were any choirboys. Some pub singer set the While Shepherds Watched hymn to Clark’s lively tune and arrangement, and it went viral. From there, some mischievous rapscallion (choirboy or not) wrote the parody Ilkla Mooar baht ‘at lyrics. We certainly know that they went viral, first in Yorkshire, and then internationally in the 1960s.

Whatever its history, it sure is a fun song to listen to, as well as to sing a cappella, and that is why one of Canada’s favourite radio hosts, the late Stuart McLean, enticed the members of his Vinyl Café Orchestra to sing it on his Dec 13, 1996 Christmas Show. The singers here are Ian Bell (lead), Rick Avery, Judy Greenhill, Anne Lederman, Kate Murphy, and Oliver Schroer. I got it from a Vinyl Café Productions CD released in 1997. Here are the full six verses of the original song:

While shepherds watched their flocks by night,All seated on the ground,The angel of the Lord came down,And glory shone around.

“Fear not,” said he for mighty dreadHad seized their troubled mind“Glad tidings of great joy I bringTo you and all mankind.

“To you, in David’s town, this dayIs born of David’s lineA Savior, who is Christ the Lord;And this shall be the sign:

“The heavenly babe you there shall findTo human view displayed,All simply wrapped in swathing bandsAnd in a manger laid.”

Thus spoke the angel, and forthwith Appeared a shining throngOf angels praising God, who thusAddressed their joyful song:

“All glory be to God on high,And to the earth be peace;Goodwill henceforth from heav’n to menBegin and never cease.”

Sherburne (While Shepherds Watched)For many years I had a policy of not repeating the same rendition of songs. Well, not on purpose anyway. Then, two years ago I said that I would begin allowing myself to repeat renditions that had been on my cassette or CD Samplers here on my online Bill’s Midwinter Music series. But I would not repeat renditions that I had already posted online (well, not on purpose anyway.)

This selection is cutting it pretty close. Just last year on Dec 23 I posted a version of Sherburne (page 186 in the Sacred Harp songbook) that the folk music collector Alan Lomax had recorded at the United Sacred Harp Annual Convention in 1959. But now I found this recording on YouTube of a better quality, higher resolution recording of the same song being sung at the same group’s 1999 annual convention. It gives a more accurate impression of what it sounds like to be in the middle of a Sacred Harp square leading the singers. It really brings up the tenor melody and the bass harmony parts. As a bass myself, I like that.

As is common with Sacred Harp singing, only the first two verses are sung here.

Shiloh (Methinks I See an Heav’nly Host)Both the words and music for this piece were written by William Billings (1746-1800). Billings was a Boston tanner who also held the civic post of scavenger for the city of Boston (i.e., he was responsible for removing dead animals from the streets.) He came from a poor family. His father had died when he was 14 years old, and he had to quit school to support his family.

Billings had one eye, and one of his legs was shorter than the other. According to a contemporary description of him, he did not have a winning manner but he did have a strong addiction to snuff and “… an uncommon negligence of person. Still, he spake & sung & thought as a man above the common abilities.” Billings was a good friend of the revolutionary instigators Sam Adams and Paul Revere, leading to speculation that he might have been one of the participants in the Boston Tea Party (which happened when he was 27 years old.)

According to an authoritative introduction to a compilation of Billings’ compositions:

The Boston into which William Billings was born on October 7, 1746, was a busy, thriving seaport town of over 15,000 inhabitants. It was the largest city in the British American colonies, and the center of commerce and trade for one of the colonies’ most populous areas. … The proximity of Harvard College, across the Charles River in Cambridge, added an intellectual aura to Boston’s reputation.

However, in spite of its position as a commercial and intellectual center, Boston’s Puritan origins still weighed heavily upon public activities. Although the Puritan oligarchy of the seventeenth century had passed into history, the clergy still exerted an important and often decisive influence on the affairs of the town. …

Boston’s reputation as a center of sacred music is well known, although again the public record can only suggest the extent of the activity. One can claim that the practice of sacred music was widespread, but there is no reason to believe that music-making in Boston churches was of a high artistic calibre. The principal churches were Congregational, and reformed Calvinists had traditionally opposed instrumental, polyphonic choral, or florid solo vocal music in public worship. Only the singing of Psalms in verse by the entire congregation was an authorized musical part of worship services.

Prejudice against harmonized choral music weakened somewhat during the mid-eighteenth century, and choirs of singers appeared in many churches. Originally designed as a group of experienced singers to lead and support congregational singing, the choir on special occasions was sometimes permitted to sing an anthem before or after the service.

Opposition to instrumental and solo vocal music continued into the nineteenth century in most Congregational churches. …

In addition to his day jobs as a tanner and scavenger, Billings became a largely self-taught choir leader, composer and publisher, issuing six volumes of his music. He served as the choir director for several Congregational and reformed-Calvinist churches, and occasionally organized singing schools. Billings usually wrote the airs (tunes) and arrangements for established texts, such as the poetry of British poet laureates Isaac Watts and Nathum Tate, but he wrote the words for Shiloh himself.

Actually, this is one of two arrangement that he published with these lyrics. He had earlier used almost exactly the same text for a choral arrangement named Boston (abridged version here). That had appeared in his 1778 hymnbook The Singing Master’s Assistant and he had to vigorously defend the biblical validity of its lyrics to the elders of several congregations.

But over the next few years he developed an idea for this other arrangement for those words that had already been found acceptable. That is how this hymn arrangements came to be published in his 1786 hymnbook The Suffolk Harmony. It is performed here by the short-lived Canadian ensemble The Elastic Millennium Choir that was based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It is from their 1997 album An Old Canadian Christmas.

This song isn’t in the version of the Sacred Harp songbook that we usually use for our singings, but it is in Karen Willard’s An American Christmas Harp songbook that we sometimes sing hymns from.

Methinks I see an heav’nly host,Of angels on the wing!Methinks I hear their cheerful notes,So merrily they sing.

Let all your fears be banish’d hence,Glad tidings I proclaim;For there’s a savior born today,And Jesus is His name.

Lay down your crooks, and quit your flocks,To Bethlehem repair;And let your wand’ring steps be squar’dBy yonder shining star.

Seek not in courts or palaces,Nor royal curtains draw;But search the stable, see your GodExtended on the straw.

Then learn from hence ye rural swains,The meekness of your God,Who left the boundless realms of joyTo ransom you with blood.

The master of the inn refus’d,A more commodious place;Ungen’rous soul of savage mould,And destitute of grace.

Exult ye oxen, low for joy,Ye tenants of the stall,Pay your obeisance, on your kneesUnanimously fall.

The Royal Guest you entertain,Is not of common birth,But second to the Great I Am,The God of heav’n and earth.

Then suddenly a heav’nly host,Around the shepherds throng,Exulting in the threefold GodAnd thus address their song.

To God the Father, Christ the Son,And Holy Ghost ador’d:The First and Last, the Last and First,Eternal praise afford, eternal praise afford.

Let all your fears be banish’d,Glad tidings I proclaim;For there’s a savior born today,And Jesus is His name.

Herald AngelsThe famous Christmas carol Hark! The Herald Angels Sing as we know it today is the product of many hands over many years, but its history too is well documented. The song was first published in Hymns and Sacred Poems in 1739 under the title Hymn for Christmas-Day. It had been written by the influential preacher, and composer of almost 9000 hymns and poems, Charles Wesley, who with his brother John was one of the founders of Methodism.

Wesley’s opening couplet was: “Hark how all the welkin rings / Glory to the King of Kings.” Even at the time, the word welkin was a rather archaic expression meaning the sky or the heavens. Charles Wesley said that the song was inspired by having heard the joyous sound of London’s bells while walking to church on Christmas morning.

In 1753, a fellow preacher and poet who was a close associate of the Wesleys published the song in his new hymnbook, but he changed those first two lines to the ones we know today. Seven years after that, more words of the hymn were revised by the Rev Martin Madan. Another hymnodist dropped two verses, and another one added a refrain. But still, the song remained only modestly popular.

The problem was not in the words, but the melody. It wasn’t that the arrangement composed by Charles Wesley was a dud – it was the same superb one that is now commonly affixed to Wesley’s celebrated Easter anthem Christ the Lord is Risen Today! But for some reason that triumphal tune just did not work well with the words, and so even with the massaging of the lyrics the hymn still wasn’t widely sung.

Several composers tried to write a better tune for it over the years. A few of those variants still survive in the British pub-singing and west gallery tradition, but mostly they are now only known because of their survival on the shelves of archives. One of the unsuccessful variants is this one composed by “J. Massey” that has the tune name Radiance. He published it in Manchester in 1840. I cannot find any information online about J. Massey.

Then, finally, in 1855 an English organist named William Hayman Cummings matched it with an arrangement that the finely-polished lyrics deserve. He didn’t compose the arrangement himself. He just slightly-adjusted the arrangement of an obscure choral work that the German composer Felix Mendelssohn had written in 1840 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the invention of the printing press. That arrangement immediately caught the public’s favour! It soon was widely published in just about every subsequent hymn book. (The concept of copyright was meaningless in those days.) The song soon left the liturgical world of church hymns to become one of the world’s most popular Christmas carols.

The melody and lyrics were not an obvious match. According to Christmas music historian William Studwell:

… it is one of the strangest of carols. It is, in fact, the most peculiar piece from the top musical echelon of Christmas. In addition to its singular history which necessitated five major contributors, it is artistically odd, as well. The superlative tune, among the very best associated with any Christmas song, is actually an uncarol-like military-type march.

While most carols fall into one of three types – the jolly Yuletide song, the tranquil nativity hymn, or the stately religious processional – Hark! is in contrast a rousing, fast paced, dynamic, unhesitating, unpausing, breathtaking march in 4/4 time. Its bold, stirring, powerful, rapidly cadenced strides vigorously transport the singer or listener on a confident wave of martial music which loudly and joyfully proclaims the story of Christ’s birth. …

Studwell goes on to note that every verse is “saturated with religious doctrine” but “notwithstanding this overdose of theology” the quality of poetry of the time-polished lyrics, especially the first verse, is exceptional, and that the tone and rhythm of the words are musically very much in sync with the melody. He concludes:

And this is the most crucial consideration, for although we cannot ignore the carol’s peculiarities and limitations, its fundamental reasons for existence are not to serve the purposes of the critic or analyst but to be sung, to be enjoyed, and to inspire. All three of these aspirations, certainly, are fully and continually achieved, season, after season, after season.

So, after all that big build-up why am I not giving you the Mendelssohn version? Because you will undoubtedly be hearing that one other times during this Christmas season, but I can confidently predict that you won’t hear this “loser” J. Massey version which repeats the last two lines of each verse instead of using the standard refrain elsewhere.

This recording is by The Oxford Waits & The Mellstock Band, and is from their 2000 album Hey for Christmas. Here are the full lyrics of the song:

Hark! The herald angels singGlory to the newborn King!Peace on earth, and mercy mildGod and sinners reconciled

Joyful, all ye nations riseJoin the triumph of the skiesWith th’ angelic host proclaimChrist is born in Bethlehem!

Christ, by highest heav’n adoredChrist, the everlasting Lord!Late in time behold Him comeOffspring of a virgin’s womb

Veiled in flesh the Godhead seeHail th’ incarnate DeityPleased with us in flesh to dwellJesus, our Emmanuel

Hail the heav’n-born Prince of PeaceHail the Son of RighteousnessLight and life to all He bringsRis’n with healing in His wings

Mild He lays His glory byBorn that we no more may dieBorn to raise us from the earthBorn to give us second birth

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit midwintermusic.substack.com

The Carol Singers, painted by William M. Spittle in 1893 (image source)

Playlist

* Broadwood Wassail Coope Boyes & Simpson et al. 2:48

* A Wassail Tune (Chestnut) Baltimore Consort 1:44

* Gower Wassail Quadriga Consort 3:27

Music notes

Broadwood Wassail I got this from the 2011 album Fire and Sleet and Candlelight published in Britain by the NoMasters Co-op folk music label founded by John Tams and Jim Boyes. The singers are Barry Coope, Jim and Georgina Boyes, Lester Simpson, and sisters Jo Freya and Fi Fraser.

This wassail song was documented earlier than most of the other wassails we know today. It was written down by Rev. John Broadwood and privately published in 1843 in his booklet with the unwieldly title: Old English Songs as now sung by the peasantry of the Weald of Surry and Sussex and collected by one who has learnt them by hearing them sung every Christmas from early childhood by the country people, who go about to the Neighbouring Houses, singing or “Wassailing” as it is called, at that season.

Song-catchers preferably document from whom they get the songs they collect, and they have tended to name wassails either after the places from which they were collected or with their opening words. Those conventions had not yet been established in 1843, and Rev. Broadwood did not give any names to his songs or identify specific locations for the wassails in his booklet. On the album Coope Boyes & Simpson et al. named this one Broadwood Wassail after its collector, but other artists who have recorded it have called it Sussex Wassail, A Wassail A Wassail, and simply Our Wassail.

[Update: I was so focused on the lyrics that I hadn’t noticed that it is set to the tune to God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen until Avery drew my attention to that in the comments after I posted this. All of the recorded versions under their various names use that same familiar melody, so I presume that Rev Broadwood documented that the local wassail song was sung that way (although that is also possible that that is a setting that someone suggested when Rev Braidwood’s 1843 booklet was first discovered and everyone has been following that suggestion.) It was quite common in earlier times for new songs to be set to already-familiar melodies.

God Rest Ye Merry is clearly the older of the two songs. It is widely acknowledged to date back to London in medieval times as a song that was sung by that city’s Waits, or night security guards. Those urban roots are significant. From the city, that song spread to the countryside, and there are a number of variations on it with its very religious lyrics that have been collected from rural areas. That makes it quite unlike almost all songs that have the word “wassail” in them, which rarely have any lyrics related to the nativity story.

Those lyrics might have been sung by rural wassailers, especially when they were visiting someone who was known to be very religious, but God Rest Ye Merry isn’t a wassail song as such. The songs well-documented antiquity was one of the main reasons that Victorian era people believed that there had been a practice of Christmas caroling with religious songs in medieval times.

Searches for more examples of such songs turned up too few examples of them to support that theory, although they did find a few more true medieval carols with religious lyrics such as The First Nowell and Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day.]

Here are the lyrics:

A wassail, a wassail, a wassail we beginWith sugar plums and cinnamon and other spices in.

Chorus (after each verse): With a wassail, a wassail, a jolly wassail, And may joy come to you and to our wassail.

Good master and good mistress, if you will so incline,Come send us out your roast beef, like wise you Christmas chine.

If you’ve any maids within your house, as I suppose you’ve none,They’d not let us stand a-wassailing so long on this cold stone.

For we’ve wassailed all this day long, and nothing could we find,But an owl in an ivy bush and her we left behind.

We’ll cut a toast all round the loaf, and set it by the fire,We’ll wassail bees and apple trees, unto your heart’ s desire.

Our purses they are empty, our purses they are thin,They lack a little silver to line ’em well within.

Hang out your silver tankard upon your golden spear,We’ll come no more a-wassailing, until another year.

A Wassail Tune (Chestnut) The name of this dance melody might be a bit of a stretch, because its use for wassailing appears to be somewhat speculative. But since this recording comes from the Baltimore Consort’s 1994 album Bright Day Star: Music for the Yuletide Season, and that authenticity-oriented Early Music group both named it as such and included it on their Yuletide album is a good enough excuse for me to include it here.

The tune is for an English country dance that is called Chestnut (or Dove’s Figary) in John Playford’s important 1651 tunebook The English Dancing Master, which was subtitled Plaine and easie Rules for the Dancing of Country Dances, with the Tune to each Dance. The speculation about the tune’s use for wassailing was in music historian and folklorist Margaret Dean-Smith’s commentary for her facsimile edition of that book. There, she alludes to the tune’s use as a wassail song along with several other possibilities.

In the liner notes, this arrangement is described as their reworking of a three-part setting of Playford’s melody-only tune by Marshall Barron, from his 1986 tune-book Early Playford for Early Instruments.

Gower Wassail was collected by A.L. Lloyd from the remote Gower Peninsula on the south-west coast of Wales, near Swansea. It came from the singing of Phil Tanner (1862-1950) when that great repository of folklore was 75 years old. Lloyd included it in his 1967 songbook Folk Song in England. I included a different rendition of this song in my Dec 21, 2022 newsletter/blog posting and there I gave a fairly detailed report about both the wassail and Phil Tanner, so I won’t repeat that information here. That posting also includes an essay about the roots of wassailing and other luck-visit songs and rituals.

This version is by the Austrian ensemble Quadriga Consort who specialize in bringing early British music to the continent, where for the most part the music is not familiar and is considered rather exotic. It is from their 1012 CD On a Cold Winter’s Day, which is subtitled Early Christmas Music and Carols from the British Isles. The singer is Elizabeth Kaplan.

A-wassail, a-wassail throughout this town,Our cup it is white and our ale it is brown.Our wassail is made of the good ale and true,Some nutmeg and ginger, it’s the best we can do .

Chorus (after each verse): Fol-dee-dol, fol-dee-dol-dee-dol, Fol-dee-dol-dee-dol, fol-dee-dol-dee-dee, Fol-dee-derol, fol-dee-der-dee, Sing too-ra-li-doh.

Our wassail is made of the elderberry bough,And so my good neighbours, we’ll drink unto thou,Besides all on earth, you’ll have apples in store,Pray let us come in for it’s cold by the door.

We hope that your apples will prosper and bearSo we may have cider when we call here next year.And where you have one barrel we hope you have tenSo we can have cider when we come here again

There’s a master and a mistress sitting down by the fireWhile we poor wassail boys do wait in the mire.And you pretty maid with your silver-headed pin,Please open the door and let us come in.

We know by the moon that we are not too soon,And we know by the sky that we are not too high.We know by the stars that we are not too far,And we know by the ground that we are within sound.

We jolly wassail boys are growing weary and cold,Drop a bit of small silver into our old bowl,And if we’re alive for another New Year,Perhaps we may call and see who does live here.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit midwintermusic.substack.com

Playlist

* Winter Solstice Song - Rosemary Beland - 1:11

* Solstice Evergreen - Spiral Dance - 4:49

* Light is Returning – KIVA - 3:13

* Gaia’s Grace - Penny Sidor - 0:55

Music notes

Winter Solstice Song A winterborne is a seasonal stream that dries up in the summertime. That is also the name of an all-instrumental album recorded in 1996 by Victoria BC musicians Rosemary Beland and the late Mark Bracken (1947-2014). This is a hammer dulcimer solo by Rosemary.

The tune is a Hungarian folk song that was collected by Béla Bartók. Bartók is primarily now remembered as having been one of the most important early 20th century composers, but he was also an important collector of Hungarian, Slovak and Bulgarian folk music. He was one of the pioneers of comparative musicology, which later became known as ethnomusicology. The great American folk music scholar Charles Seeger (who I tend to think of as Ruth’s husband, rather than as Pete’s father) described him as “one of the greatest field collectors of the first half of the 20th century.”

Bartók was a good friend and colleague of fellow Hungarian composer and music educator Zoltán Kodály, creator of the Kodály method of music education, who also was an important collector of Hungarian folk songs. The name of this piece is Regös ének (Winter solstice song). It is one of several practice pieces based on Hungarian and Slovak folk music that Bartók composed in 1908 or ‘09 specifically for Kodály’s teaching method under the title Gyermekeknek (For Children).

Bartók’s score for this piece includes the instruction that it be played molto vivace (very lively). You can see it being played on a piano by a student here.

Solstice EvergreenI just discovered the pagan folk-rock band Spiral Dance this year. They are based in Adelaide, Australia so the winter solstice that they sing about occurs on June 21. The group was formed in 1992 and their membership has evolved quite a bit over the years, but they have always had Adrienne Piggott as their songwriter and lead singer. This is one of her compositions. It comes from their 2006 album The Quickening, but I got it from their having posted it on YouTube. But if you want to watch a well-done slideshow while listening to it again, I recommend this independent fan video posted by Denise Kelsey which also has the same high-bitrate quality of sound.

It came as a scene from an old picture postcardOf Victorian ladies with skates on their feetOf ponds frozen over and boughs hung with ice tipsAnd through frosty panes watched the snow and the sleet

And the smoke ventured out from the soot-blackened chimneysAnd shimmered beneath an icy-cold moonBut inside an evergreen stands in the cornerAnd a bright blazing fire to keep out the gloom

[Chorus] There’s holly and ivy and white mistle berry The sun is in hiding, his face he can’t show So, fill up your glasses so we can be merry While rosy-red cheeks by the fire light glow

Under the street lights, they’ll gather togetherTheir shivering voices will ring out with songTo sing in the Yule regardless of weatherAnd brighten the darkness all the night long

And the mummers perform their plays from the agesIn comes King George, a man of courage boldWhile out in the orchards, we’ll go wassailingAnd sup on spiced cider to keep out the cold [Chorus]

The holly and oak king are now changing placesAnd Jack Frost is wearing his new winter vestWhile out in the wood pile, old Jack Green is sleepingTo awaken in spring from his long dreamy rest

So on this Yule tide, we’ll gather togetherBeneath the sign of the ancient god’s hornsAs the new year beckons through cold misty weatherWe’ll raise a toast as the sun is reborn [Chorus]

It came as a scene from an old picture postcardOf Victorian ladies with skates on their feetOf ponds frozen over and boughs hung with ice tipsAnd through frosty panes watched the snow and the sleet

And the smoke ventured out from the soot-blackened chimneysAnd shimmered beneath an icy-cold moonBut inside an evergreen stands in the cornerAnd a bright blazing fire to keep out the gloom [Chorus]

Light is Returning This song, which is eminently suitable to be a spiral dance chant, was written by the late singer-songwriter and social activist Charlie Murphy (1953-2016). Charlie lived with his husband on Whidby Island in Washington State. According to his obituary in the Seattle Times: “He was a pioneer of the men’s movement and sang openly about gay rights, making him one of the few out and proud gay singer/songwriters of his day.” He was also life-long social activist and an out-and-proud pagan.

Light is returningEven though it is the darkest hourNo one can hold...Back the dawn

Got to keep it burningGot to keep the light of hope aliveMake safe our journey...Through the storm

Our planet is turningCircle on her path around the sunEarth Mother is calling...Her children home

I first learned this song as a member of Victoria’s Gettin’ Higher Choir when Charlie was the guest performer for a 2002 benefit concert that we gave as a fund raising event for Power of Hope. That is an organization he and Peggy Taylor co-founded which organizes summer-camps to empower youth to become social activists through the arts. At that concert, I and a couple of hundred other singers backed him up when he sang a jazzy rendition of the song. (A recording of that performance was included on my Bill’s 2010 Solstice Sampler CD. I’ll post it here someday.)

Light is Returning has become a familiar song on Winter Solstice music recordings. One measure of its success is that it is included in the songbook Rise Up Singing – being included there is like making it into the Folk Music Songwriter Hall of Fame.

It is sung here by KIVA, a Washington DC based group that was founded 35 years ago. They do not describe themselves as pagan or neo-pagan, but they: “weave a rainbow tapestry of ancient cultures and natural imagery into energizing mystical folk music for all ages.” It is from their 2014 album Yuletide. They got this feedback about their version of the song from Charlie himself:

Wow! It’s wonderful and such a creative rendition of the song. I love the rhythm, the vocals... Wow.

Gaia’s GraceThis mealtime grace song was written by the late Becky Berson (1953-2000) who was born and raised in Salt Lake City, but moved to the Pacific Northwest by way of Oregon’s Willamette Valley, and then to Victoria where she became a leader in our local folk music community. It is sung here by Penny Sidor and is from a posthumous tribute album to Becky that was self-produced by her widower Denis Donnelly with performances by a Who’s Who of Vancouver Island and the adjacent small islands’ folksingers.

I already posted this song on my Dec 8, 2021 posting, but although it is a pre-meal grace song I thought that its message is the best way to end today’s Winter Solstice set.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit midwintermusic.substack.com

Playlist

* Let Us See the Beauty - Laurence Cole and friends - 2:39

* Winter Solstice Chant - Susan T. Mashiyama - 3:13

* Gaia, Carry Us Home - MotherTongue - 3:29

Music notes

Let Us See the BeautyLaurence Cole didn’t write this to be a Winter Solstice song – it is an Every Day sort of song. On the front page of his website he explains why he composes this kind of music:

Part of my mission is to re-acquaint people with their birthright and natural ability to make beautiful and meaningful sound together. Most of the songs I’ve written are short, easy to learn, chant-like songs with several layers that fit over and around each other in interesting and pleasurable rhythmic and harmonic challenges that make them fun to sing. Group singing is one of the most ancient and primal “technologies of belonging” that we humans have been using since our earliest times, possibly before speech itself.

When we make joyous and passionate song together, it nourishes our souls and offers an enlivening gift back to the natural world that made us and gives us our sustenance and our very being. When such an exchange is genuinely made, and the song finds its natural ending, often there is a sweet, lively silence in which we simply stand and hold the “enchantment,” the sense of deep and genuine communion amongst each other and with the whole living world.

Laurence’s website is filled with inspiring songs like this, and he keeps adding more. And he doesn’t just post performances like this one. He has tracks for each of the separate parts in the voice ranges that suit them – soprano, alto, tenor, bass – to aide people in learning how to sing his songs. He also tells the stories behind their origin, and sometimes he even gives instructions of how they can be used as a ritual dance.

All of Laurence’s music is freely available to use. Again, in his words:

It’s the traveling of these songs that gives me the greatest joy. A multi-track recording with only a few voices is not nearly the same magic as many diverse voices singing together. It’s that large and lustrous group expression that gives us a sense of what the word “Universe” really means, “Unity midst diversity.” My fondest dream is that you take these songs and share and teach them with your groups and communities, workshops, festivals, rituals, families, etc.

The page for this song is here. His explanation for its origin that is that it is based on a fragment from a poem called The Invitation written by Oriah Mountain Dreamer. The poem is on the front page of her website. It begins:

It doesn’t interest mewhat you do for a living.I want to knowwhat you ache for,and if you dare to dreamof meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest mehow old you are.I want to knowif you will risklooking like a foolfor lovefor your dreamfor the adventure of being alive.

Reading the poem helped me to understand Laurence’s much more focused musical poetry: In its second part (the higher voices) he skips the “it doesn’t interest me” preamble and gets right to the nub of the matter: “I want know if you can see the beauty, even when it’s not pretty every day.”

The song only has two parts:

Part One:Let us see the beauty every dayAnd source our lives from its presence.

Part Two:I want to know if you can see the beautyEven when it’s not pretty every day.I want to know if you can see the beautyAnd source your life from its presence.

In his notes about the song Laurence says: “This is also a song that is lifted up by little improvisational embellishments. Have fun!”

Winter Solstice ChantI just discovered this one on YouTube a few days ago. I was looking for songs and tunes using “winter solstice” as my search phrase. That is a trick that I only recently began doing: Back when my annual Christmas and Midwinter music Samplers were on cassette, and then on CD, I almost always only posted music from my own album collection, or ones that had been sent to me by other Christmas music collectors. Mind you, back in those days YouTube mostly had low quality, low-bitrate copies of the music that fans had ripped from their vinyl or CD albums. These days, it is the performers themselves or their album labels who often post high-bitrate versions of their recordings online.

When I first saw the YouTube video of this song, after a lone-player Celtic harp introduction the image went into a multi-person mosaic of harpists and singers. That format of posting songs became so familiar during the Covid “social isolation” years of 2020 and ’21 that I immediately thought that it must have been made at that time. It was only when I opened the attributions and saw that it had been posted in 2018 that I looked at the people more closely and saw that they were all the same person!

The composer, musician and singers are all Susan T. Mashiyama who posts as susansharpsongs. Besides being a harpist and singer-songwriter, she is a music teacher and Unitarian-Universalist congregation music director who lives in the San Francisco Bay area.

Normally, unless songs are in a foreign language I’m pretty fussy about selecting ones that have sufficiently good enunciation that you can follow their lyrics without having to read them. That means I tend to avoid recordings like this that have heavy reverb or breathy singers. But the interlocking countermelodies and fuguing turned spellbinding, and reading the lyrics hooked me:

[Chorus] Chant the seasons all around us These words never will be stayed As the chestnut falls in silence We will catch the wind inside a whisper and a prayer Sleep and dream ye of peace

Now the day turns into darkness As the sunlight starts to fade Winter Solstice is upon us And the twilight stars are sparkling upon the air Chanting of trees Chorus

All the leaves are softly blowing Brown and red and gold they rustle everywhere ‘Tis the season to go softly Still into the night and keep each other in our care Go now in peace

Gaia, Carry Us HomeMotherTongue was a performance group affiliated with the non-profit organization EarthSpirit based in New England. That is a neo-pagan organization founded in 1977 dedicated to the preservation and development of Earth-centered spirituality, culture and community.

The word “pagan” comes from the Latin word paganus, meaning “country dweller” or “rustic”. Throughout the world, agricultural people have equated God with nature, and developed animist religious beliefs that honour Nature itself as it is embodied in the spirits of trees, places, animals and all things.

Part of pagan belief is veneration for, and the marking of, nature’s cycle of changing seasons. The people of what we now call northern Europe likened the annual cycle to the turning of a wheel: Indeed, the word Yule is believed to derive from the Saxon word for “wheel”. (I don’t know what they called the midwinter season before that late Neolithic or early Bronze Age technology was first introduced to northern Europe in the 4th century BCE.)

Our continuing tradition of Christmas decorating with circular wreaths made from evergreen boughs is rooted in this imagery. In fact, almost all of what we think of as traditional Christmas customs are descended from pagan rites and rituals, for the simple reason that until quite recently most European people were country-folk. Their animist beliefs lingered despite Christianization. I wrote a whole series of essays about that, called Ancient Origins, which I posted with my 2021 songs-of-the-day mailings beginning here.

While EarthSpirit is still in operation, MotherTongue appears to now be disbanded; at least, I cannot find evidence online of recent concerts or recordings by them. They appear to have been active from the early 1990s to about 2007. This song came from their excellent 1994 album This Winter’s Night: A Celebration of the Winter Solstice. The song was written in 1992 by Abbi Spinner & J. Magnus McBride, who were musicians with MotherTongue’s band. The intertwining lyrics are:

Gaia, carry us home.Mother, we are one.Remember the god,Remember yourself,Remember the goddess,Remember.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit midwintermusic.substack.com

Playlist

* Husbandman and Servingman Andy Turner and Ian Giles 4:20

* Serving Girl’s Holiday Felicia Dale 4:53

Music notes

Husbandman and Servingman This dialog between a farmer and a footman from the manor is representative of might have been common style of mummers’ song in the 19th century. This one is from the southwest Dorset village of Symondsbury. It’ lyrics are from a detailed published account of that community’s 1880 mummers play. In 1951 that documentation, as well as remembrances from community elders, was used to revive the mummer play tradition that had been discontinued several years earlier. A similar song was collected from William Walton of Adderbury, in Oxfordshire. Today’s variant was collected independently by folklorist Peter Kennedy sometime before 1956 from the singing of brothers Fred and Ray Cantwell of Standlake, also in Oxfordshire.

But the roots of such songs might go back to quite a bit earlier. Mummers plays were often performed on Boxing Day, when servants in the manor houses and other employees of the landed gentry were traditionally given the day off so that they could celebrate Christmas with their families. For some of the families it was an opportunity to all go out mumming together. According to the Mainly Folk website: “In Shakespeare’s time most English villages had their local amateur acting companies, who … performed traditional dramas in the streets or the halls of great houses.”

One can readily imagine dialogs such as this being held, and parodied, between the family members who continued to live an agricultural lifestyle and those who had left that life behind to become maids or footmen in the local manor. Would this kind of family rivalry/teasing have been different in medieval times?

The song is sung here by Ian Giles and Andy Turner, and is from Magpie Lane’s 1993 inaugural album The Oxford Ramble. That band is still going strong, and both Ian and Andy are still performing with them.

Well met, well met, my friend, all on the highway riding,Though simply together here we stand.I pray now tell to me of what calling you may be, And art thou not a servant man?

Oh no, my brother dear, what makes thee to inquireOf any such thing from my hand?Indeed I will not ‘frain, but I will tell you plain:I am a downright husbandman. [repeat last 2 lines as a refrain]

Well, if an husbandman you be, will you come along with me,Though freely together here we stand.For in a very short space I may take you to a placeWhere you may be a servant man.

As to thy diligence, I give thee many thanks,But nought do I require from thy hand.But I pray now to me show wherefore that I may knowThe pleasures of a servingman. [repeat last 2 lines]

Well, isn’t it a nice thing to ride out with the king,With lords and dukes and any such men;For to hear the horn to blow and see the hounds all in a row,That’s pleasures of a servant man.

But my pleasure’s more than that, to see my oxen fatAnd a good stock of hay by them stand;With me plowing and me sowing, and me reaping and me mowing,That’s pleasures of an husbandman. [repeat last 2 lines]

But then we do eat such delicate fine meatOf goose, and of capon, and of swan;Our pastry’s also fine, we drink sugar in our wine,That’s diet for a servant man.

As to the ducks and capons, give I my beans and bacon,And a good drop of ale now and then;For in a farmer’s house you will find both brawn and souse,That’s diet for an husbandman. [repeat last 2 lines]

And then we do wear the finest of grandeur,Our coats are trimmed with fur all around;Our shirts as white as milk, and our stockings made of silk:That’s clothing for a servant man.

As to thy grandeur give I the coat I wearSome bushes to ramble among;Give to me me good greatcoat, and in my purse a grout,That’s clothing for an husbandman. [repeat last 2 lines]

Kind sir, I must confess although it causes me distressTo grant to you the uppermost hand;Although it is most painful, it is altogether gainfulAnd I wish I’d been an husbandman.

And so now, good people all, both be you great and small,Honour the king of our land;And let us, whatsoever, to do our best endeavour,For to maintain an husbandman. [repeat last 2 lines]

Serving Girl’s Holiday is much older than that other song. This is an abridged version, and translated into modern English, of a song from the 14th or 15th century. Its lyrics are in a book published in 1952 called Secular lyrics of the XIVth and XVth centuries by the respected scholar of old- and middle-English literature and music Prof. Rossell Hope Robbins. As the title suggests, Dr. Robbins’ book only has the lyrics, with no melody. I presume that if I bothered to do so, I could find the source where he found the song online.

Maddy Prior got it from an unidentified book that included this poetic translation of the lyrics from Prof. Robbins’ book. She shortened it and set the lyrics to the melody of a 12th century Latin song Orientis Partibus (hear that here.) Orientis Partibus is a parody song that was sung in Sens, France on the Christmas season’s topsy-turvy day, when roles were reversed and a choir boy officiated as the bishop. That custom was a survivor from how the Romans had celebrated Saturnalia over 1000 years before then.

This song, with Maddy’s setting, has been covered by several folksingers and groups. Here it is sung by Felicia Dale accompanying herself on the hurdy-gurdy. Felicia and her partner William Pint perform as Pint &Dale and are based in Seattle, Washington. They are primarily known for performing nautical songs, which is I how I came to learn about them. This is from an out-of-print 5-song holiday EP called Eight Bells that they released in 2009 .

I’ve waited longing for today:Spindle, bobbin and spool, away!In joy and bliss I’m off to playUpon this high-o holiday.

CHORUS (repeated after each verse): And spindle, bobbin and spool, away, For joy that it’s a holiday!

The dirt upon the floor’s unswept,The fireplace isn’t cleaned and kept.I haven’t cut the rushes yetUpon this high-o holiday.

In pails the milk has got to go;I have to spread this bowl of dough —It clogs my nails and fingers soAs I knead this high-o holiday.

The cooking herbs I must fetch inAnd fix my kerchief under my chin.Darling Jack, lend me a pinTo fix me well this holiday!

And when we stop beside the trackAt the inn, this Sunday, JackWill whet my whistle and pay my whackAs on every holiday.

I’ve waited longing for today:Spindle, bobbin and spool, away!In joy and bliss I’m off to playUpon this high holiday.

If you want to see the original version of the song, including the verses that Maddy edited out, here it is courtesy of Bruce from the Mudcat discussion forum:

Al this day ic han sought,spyndul ne werue ne wond y nought;To myche blisse ic am broutazen this holyday.Wybbe &c.

[Chorus] Wybbe ne rele ne sypyyn yc ne may ffor ioyze that it is holydayAll vnswope ys owre vleth,& owre fyre ys vnleth,Oure ruschen ben vnrepe zeth,azen this hy halyday.Ye moste feschun worton In;thredele my kerchef vndur my khyn;leue iakke, lend me a pynTo thredele me this holiday.Now yt draweth to the none& al my cherrus ben vndone;y moste a lyte solas mye schoneto make hem dowge this holyday.Y most mylkin in his payl;Outh me bred al this schayl,zut is the dow vndur myy naylas ic knad this holyday.Iakke wol brynge me onward in my wey,Wyth me desyre for te pleyze;Of my dame stant me non eyzean neuer a god halidayIacke wol pay for my scotha sonday atte the ale-schoth;iacke wol sowse wel my trotheury god haliday.Sone he wolle take me be the hand,& he wolle legge me on the lond,that al my buttockus ben of sond,opon this hye holyday.In he pult & out he drow,& euer yc lay on hym y-low;‘by godus deth, thou dest me wowvpon this hey holyday!’Sone my wombe began to swelleas greth as a belle;durst y nat my dame telleWat me betydde this holyday.

If your Old English has gotten a bit rusty and you can’t read that, you can find a translation of the full poem to modern English here. Be prepared for a surprise ending regarding how the singer enjoyed her holiday.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit midwintermusic.substack.com

Playlist

* Multi-holiday song Christine Lavin & the Mistletones 2:07

* Ye Christian Heralds The Elastic Millennium Choir 1:48

* A New Year’s Round Christine Lavin & the Mistletones 1:44

* Dona Nobis Pacem Leah Salomaa & friends 3:30

Music notes

Rounds, also called perpetual canons, are both fun to sing and make for enjoyable listening. They are one of the easiest choral styles to learn because everyone sings the same words and tune – they just start at different places. The musical style appears to have been first invented in Germany in medieval times. The oldest known ones are in Latin dating back to the time of the construction of Notre Dame Cathedral in the 12th century.

These four add to two rounds that I have already posted this year – King Henry VIII’s Green Grow’th the Holly posted on Dec 1, and Joyce Poley’s Christmas is Here on Dec 5.

Multi-holiday song This was written by New York City singer-songwriter and promoter of contemporary acoustic music Christine Lavin. This is not the actual name of this song. She calls it A Christmas / Kwanzaa / Solstice / Chanukah / Ramadan / Boxing Day Song, but I found that name rather clunky so I abbreviated it here. It is not really a round or a canon even though it sounds like one; it is six songs that she wrote to the same melody that lock together. The melody is by the English composer William Sheild (1748-1829), so that is at least 200 years old.

This recording is from her 2003 album The Runaway Christmas Tree which is out-of-print now but still available from her website as a digital download. Also on her website, Christine apologizes for the absence from this song of other international holidays that celebrate the New Year near this time but which she missed; to me, Diwali comes to mind because we have lots of folks here in BC from the Punjab. She suggests that people celebrating those other occasions write their own verses to include themselves in the song.

We wish you a Merry Christmasa joyful and merry Christmasto all who celebrate Christmaswe wish you a Happy New YearWe wish you a happy Kwanzaaa hip hop Happy Kwanzaato all who celebrate Kwanzaawe wish you a Happy New YearWe wish you a happy Solsticea sunny satisfying Solsticeto all who celebrate Solsticewe wish you a Happy New YearWe wish you a Happy Chanukaha hap hap happy Chanukahto all who celebrate Chanukanwe wish you a Happy New YearWe wish you a Happy Ramadana peaceful holy Ramadanto all who celebrate Ramadanwe wish you a Happy New YearWe wish you a Happy Boxing Daya hap hap happy Boxing Dayto all who celebrate Boxing Daywe wish you a Happy New Year

Ye Christian Heralds This circle canon of unknown origin was found by the Elastic Millennium’s founder and music director Faye Armsworthy in a hymnal called The Harmonicon, compiled and published in 1850 by Charles Robson and James Hepburn of Pictou, Nova Scotia. It is not clear whether those gentlemen wrote it or whether they got it from another source. Faye thinks that the song may have been included in that hymnal for use as a warm-up song for choir practice. The recording is from the Elastic Millennium Choir’s 1997 album An Old Canadian Christmas, which has the lovely subtitle Songs to Beguile a Winter’s Eve.

Ye Christian heralds, go proclaimSalvation, salvation in Emmanuel’s nameTo distant climes the tidings bear,And plant the Rose of Sharon there.

I was not familiar with the Rose of Sharon, so I had to look it up. In a religious context, as it is used here, the phrase is used as a metaphor for Jesus Christ, portraying him as the source of spiritual blessings that is intended to be nurtured and shared in the world.

The Rose of Sharon is mentioned in the the Song of Solomon in the Bible, but as is typical with the common names for many plants, there are several species that are called by the same name in various places. There is dispute among scholars as to which species is the one that has biblical status. You can read about that in its Wikipedia entry. The one thing that is certain is that it is not a type of rose. According to an annotation by the translation committee of the New Revised Standard Version of Song of Solomon 2:1, rose of sharon is a mistranslation of a Hebrew word for a type of crocus.

Here in North America, the name rose of sharon is usually applied to a type of deciduous hibiscus – Hibiscus syriacus to be precise, although that name is a misnomer because it is not native to Syria. It is indeed beautiful and grows readily without much care, but planting it is not advisable because Hibiscus syriacus has been declared to be an invasive species in several jurisdictions. You can read about that here.

A New Year’s Round This is another one from Christine Lavin’s album. It is a fairly well-known round that was written in 1971 by the late Alix Herrmann, who was a member of the San Francisco Folk Music Club and daughter of folk music collector Lani Herrmann. It is included in the Rise Up Singing songbook under the title Ring in the New Year.

Ring it in, ring in the New YearRing it in, ring in the New yearBells are ringing, bells are ringingBells are ringing, bells are ringingPeace and love, throughout the New YearPeace and love, throughout the New YearJoy, joy, joy!Joy, joy, joy!

Dona Nobis Pacem You probably already know this one too. It is not necessarily a Christmas song, but because of its message of peace it appears on a lot of folk music Christmas albums. Usually I would not include such a well known song in my postings, but in this case I wanted to share this version with you to show how rounds can sound so rich when they are sung slowly. This recording is from the late Leah Salomaa’s self-published 2008 children’s album under a winter star.

Its lyrics are just the three words in its name; dona nobis pacem – Latin for “grant us peace”, a phrase from the Agnus Dei in the Roman Catholic mass.

For such a famous song its origins are quite obscure. Some have credited it to famous composers including Mozart, Bach, or Palestrina. But, as someone pointed out in a Mudcat discussion forum thread about the origins of this song:

This particular round is often attributed to Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina … Though rounds were popular in Palestrina’s day -- the English round “Three Blind Mice” first appeared in print c. 1600 - it is unlikely that he wrote Dona Nobis Pacem. On the word “nobis“ when first sung when first heard the melodic leap is a 7th, the distance of seven steps between two notes. Such an interval, expressive though it might be, was considered dissonant or “disagreeable” in Palestrina’s time and would have been avoided by so conservative a composer.

Similar issues would apply to Bach, Mozart or any other classical composer. The Mudcat discussion could not identify a composer, or even an estimate for its date or place of composition. Separately, the late Sol “Roundman” Weber, who collected rounds and compiled a book of 340 of them from international sources, speculated that it was of medieval German folk music origin since it is in Latin and comes from the Catholic mass, and that is where the circular canon format of singing first began.

Its time of origin is therefore anyone’s guess, but remember, at the beginning of these music notes I said that the earliest known Latin circular canons date back to the 12th century. That is when polyphony was just beginning to emerge from Gregorian plain chant, and the classic rules for harmony singing had not yet been formulated. Possibly the folk music origin of this song was a bunch of medieval monks or nuns goofing off during whatever free time they had.

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Playlist

* The Birthday of Jesus Maura Slon and Joel Hume 1:20

* Peace and Joy Kim Suoka and The Rose Ensemble 2:21

* We have found the promised Saviour Randy Folger and ensemble 2:30

* Love is Little The Tudor Choir 2:38

Music notes:

The Birthday of JesusThe Shakers were a Pentecostal religious sect that emerged in mid-18th century England. They shared many beliefs with the of the Quakers, but featured communal celibate living, and a very different style of ecstatic singing and dancing worship rather than deep listening for the voice of God in meditative silence. The Shakers considered speaking in tongues and the songs that came to them individually as having come from God, and those songs infused all aspects of their lives.

Shakers lived a communal, pacifist, and celibate lifestyle. They thrived as a sect in the 19th century, but are almost now extinct. I have a bit more background information about the Shakers after the Music Notes below, but for much more info and and six more of their songs go to my Dec 10, 2023 posting. As an update to the information in that post, earlier this year 59 year-old April Baxter, a former Episcopal nun, has joined the Sabbathday Lake Shaker community and is on the path to full membership. That would bring their total number of current Shakers up to three. You can hear a 3 minute NPR All Things Considered clip about that here.

This song is an anonymous composition from the short-lived West Union, Indiana Settlement near Dayton, Ohio which was in existence from 1811 until 1827. That community had been settled by about 300 Shakers as part of a Western expansion, but the Shakers there “struggled against mother nature (malaria, floods, tornados) and decided to move back east.” It had been the Shakers’ westernmost settlement.

The duet is sung by Maura Slon and Joel Hume. It is from an independently-produced 1995 album called Joy of Angels: Shaker Spirituals for Christmas and the New Year. That CD is now out of print. Unfortunately I do not know anything more about the song’s history and I don’t have written lyrics. There is a companion book for the album, but I have been unable to obtain a copy.

Peace and Joy is an anonymous composition found in Original Shaker Music, published by the Shaker settlement of Mount Lebanon, NY in 1893. The soloist is is Kim Suoka and the recording is from The Rose Ensemble’s 2008 album And Glory Shone Around. Unfortunately, that Minnesota-based professional chamber choir did not survive the Covid shutdowns.

Lyrics:Awake for the angels are gath’ring near,Whispering peace and joy,Gathering near Christ’s blessing to bring,Let nothing that boon destroy.

Happy are they who gather these gifts, Fresh from the heav’ns the soul to uplift. (X2)

Oh, then let us gain ev’ry Christian grace,Whate’er the toil and strife,Thus forming here a household of faithThe fruit of the virgin life.

Let us sing with the angels in glad accord, Peace and Joy are the gifts of the Lord. (X2)

We have found the promised Saviour is also from an anonymous composer who lived in the Mount Lebanon Shaker Settlement. The soloist is the late Randy Folger, who was one of the foremost experts on Shaker music. This performance is also from the Joy of Angels album so I donot have further information.

Love is Little This song is from the Seattle-based Tudor Choir’s 2001 album of Shaker songs gentle words which was dedicated to Randy Folger. The liner note does not identify a songwriter, but it is dated from 1834 and came from the 6000 acre South Union Shaker Settlement near Auburn, Kentucky. That community was established in 1807 and lasted until 1922.

This choral arrangement is not how the Shakers would have sung the song. It is by Kevin Siegried, who after a career as a composer, singer, conductor and music teacher was at the time a doctoral student in composition at the new England Conservatory of Music.

Lyrics:Love is little, love is low;love will make my spirit grow.

Grow in peace, grow in lightlove will do the thing that’s right.

In his liner notes, Seigfried explains the apparently paradoxical statement “love is little” by explaining that “the words ‘little’ and ‘low’ appear frequently in Shaker texts to signal or invoke humility.” We are all familiar with that concept from a song called Simple Gifts which is nearly the only Shaker song that has gone mainstream and become famous. It begins: “’Tis a gift to be simple …”. Seogfried goes on to quote a stanza from the first published Shaker hymnbook, published in 1812:

I want to feel little, more simple, more mild,Like our blest parents, and more like a child;More thankful, more humble, more lowly in mind;More watchful, more pray’rful, more loving and kind.

Background information

The Shakers, formally known as the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, were a Pentecostal Christian communal sect that was founded in 18th century Manchester England. Under the charismatic leadership of Mother Ann Lee, the Shakers moved from England to the United States in 1774 hoping to escape religious persecution. However in the US their pacifism during the American Revolution and nonconformist Protestant beliefs continued to draw religious persecution, but despite that it grew rapidly until the late 19th century. But since then the sect, which believes in celibacy, has declined to the point where it is now in a precarious position.

The Shakers were perhaps the most musical of all the Christian religions. All aspects of their lives were imbued with singing and dancing. They believed that all creativity, including lyrics and melodies, came as gifts from God and should be shared. I began to collect recordings of Shaker songs suitable for Christmastime back when I was still sharing my midwinter music on 80 minute CDs. I aimed to someday have one of my annual CDs be completely filled with Shaker songs and music, with its liner notes mainly being an essay about the history of the Shake denomination and their music.

That plan needed to be changed when I switched the medium for these seasonal music compilations to these pre-Christmas daily newsletters. My December 10, 2023 newsletter was a set of six Shaker songs accompanied by my envisioned essays. Today’s musical selections are four more Shaker songs. I won’t repeat the background information in these notes. To hear those songs and/or learn more about the Shakers and their music go here.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit midwintermusic.substack.com