On BBC Radio 4Extra there is currently a programme likely to be of interest. “A Cause for Caroling” it is researched, written, and read by Jeremy Summerly. It is a fascinating journey through the ages with lots of great music throughout. There are carols you may never have heard before as well as carols you know. Most interestingly Jeremy Summerly traces the origins of carols illustrating his ideas with examples of carols obscure and familiar through the ages, and taking in numerous locations around Britain along the way, this is a history of the carol to bring comfort and joy. It's a journey full of song describing the history of a people who needed expression for seasonal joy in the coldest, hardest time of the year. In Episode 1 Jeremy Summerly discovers what he believes to be the first carol written in English.
Of particular interest to the Quire members because we have some understanding of how music can veer between the sacred and secular, in a tradition that has always had one foot in the pub and the other in the church.
You can get it on BBC Sounds and catch up over the next 30 days.
“So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.”
Thomas Hardy. “The Darkling Thrush” 1900
Steve Welton