Jeremy Summerly and the St Luke’s of Chelsea Choir return to Gresham College to deliver a history of the Christmas Carol: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-19th-century-taming-of-the-christmas-carol-from-st-erth-to-truro

At the end of the Georgian era, a revivalist collection of Christmas music was published by the MP for Bodmin and another by a Cornish solicitor. Half a century later, a Festival of Nine Lessons with Carols was celebrated on Christmas Eve 1880 in the cathedral at Truro.

This lecture, with live musical illustrations, shows how the rustic English carol was preserved in the villages of the West Country and later served back to Cornish urbanites as representative of the height of ecclesiastical sophistication.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-19th-century-taming-of-the-christmas-carol-from-st-erth-to-truro

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 1,800 lectures free to access or download from the website.

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