Nowel syng we: An English Christmas
Program Notes
During the centuries around the changing millennium, as Christianity was spreading across Europe, the time around the winter solstice became associated with the birth of Christ. Many of the earlier pagan rituals dedicated to the darkness of winter, to the hope of light and new growth were adapted to fit the Christmas festivities: the promise of birth, candles, and ornamented trees found a place along the celebration of the humanity of Christ and his family. The sight of the Madonna suckling her child is an image all humankind can associate with. It is no wonder then that the Twelve Days of Christmas, in the darkest weeks of the northern European winter, became the time for the most lavish entertainments and feasts, filled with music. Of all the songs that have come to us from those earlier times, many relate to the Christmas season.
The word 'carol' comes form the old French verb 'caroler': to sing and dance. Most early carols are dance songs - celebratory, full of intricate rhythms, composed for the Christmas festivities at English courts. The 15th-century English carol had a specific form: it includes one or two 'burdens' (refrains) and alternating solo and choir settings. We find among the carols some of the finest examples of the typical 'English' sound, produced by the frequent use of parallel consonant intervals such as thirds and sixths. Others are monophonic, and tell the story of the Annunciation in the vernacular: Nowell: Tidings true and Nova, nova.
Gabriel fram Heven-King and its Latin translation Angelus ad virginem, both from the same 13th-century manuscript, are probably the most popular early songs to tell the story of the Annunciation: the angel Gabriel visits Mary to tell her about the happy and miraculous birth about to take place.
The text for Peperit virgo was written by Richard de Ledrede, an English Fransican who was appointed Bishop of Ossory (in southern Ireland) in 1316. He provided pious Latin texts for his clergy to sing to popular secular tunes. In this case he used the tune of the famous Bryd one brere, one of the earliest extant songs in the English vernacular.
Qui creavit celum is an example of a popular medieval tradition, the 'cradle-rocking' song, a lullaby sung to the child Jesus. This one comes from the Benedictine convent of St. Mary in Chester, and was written down in the early 15th century, in a manuscript now in the Huntington Library in California.
Within the Twelve Days of Christmas, on December 28, falls the Feast of the Holy Innocents. The day commemorates Herod’s massacre of all young boys in Bethlehem when the Magi failed to deliver the newborn Christ child into his hands. It is hard to imagine a more beautiful setting than the famous Coventry Carol. Nowell sing we, the song which precedes the Coventry Carol in our program, also celebrates the Holy Innocents. You will hear the same music at the end of the concert, but set to a different text, one full of seasonal joy —a not uncommon treatment for songs during this period.
No program of 15th-century English music can be complete without its two most famous composers being represented: Lionel Power and John Dunstable. Lionel Power’s three-part Beata progenies is perhaps the most exquisite example of his early writing in what is known as the 'English Descant' style: around the plainsong in the middle part the other parts move in mostly note-against-note counterpoint. Dunstable, in Quam Pulcra es, uses a text from the Song of Songs for his antiphon to the Virgin.
Their works circulated widely on the Continent. They influenced many of the continental composers who came after them. In 1440 Martin le Franc wrote of composers such as Dufay and Binchois "who have adopted the English manner and follow Dunstable, in consequence of which a wonderful charm renders their music joyful and remarkable."
~Margriet Tindemans
