New book Deck the Hall by composer Andrew Gant tells the origin stories of our beloved Christmas carols. Described as a 'festive treat', the book uncovers the variety of traditions and places the carols were founded in. Some started life as a folk song, some are French. And although Christmas carols are sung in church, this has not always been the case.
Christian Today spoke to Gant to hear about the interesting back stories to many of our favourite carols and how they made their journey into the church.
Why did you want to write this book?
I've worked with choirs all of my adult life and I've always been very interested in how the music reflects and fits in with other things like social and cultural history, and how it reflects back to us. It was a logical step to start looking at the background and the hinterland to these wonderful songs that we all know so well. It turns out they have elements from just about every possible corner of our cultural history that you can possibly think of, from folk songs to church traditions to other countries. It really is a great hodgepodge and extremely interesting.
In your research for the book what discoveries surprised you the most?
Perhaps one of them is that what we think of as our English carol tradition turns out not to be English at all, and in some cases not entirely English. Indeed quite a few of our favourite songs turned out to be American interestingly, several well-known carols had the words written in America, including 'Oh Little Town of Bethlehem' and 'It Came Upon the Midnight Clear.' In both of those cases they also had music written to them in America which is still sung by American choirs and singers but with a different tune to what is sung in the UK. Looking at why this is the case is very interesting. 'Away in a Manger' also has two tunes to it, one used in America and one in the UK, but in this case the words and both the tunes were actually written in the US. It is quite interesting how oral traditions survive in different places.
Carols are typically joyous songs to be sung at Christmas time. However in the book you explain that some are actually rooted in pain and anguish.
Very much so indeed, of course as is the whole Christian story. The word carol for a start is an ancient word and it refers to a celebratory piece of music. It could be a song with words or it could be a dance, a sort of party song really, certainly no specific association with Christmas and definitely not with church. Even in the 19th century there was a book called 'Easter Carols and Christmas Hymns', and there the word carol was used not for Christmas. Many folk carols, apart from having one for secular and sometimes pagan traditions like 'The Holy and the Ivy' for example, some of them interestingly tell not just the Christmas bit of the story but the whole story. 'Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day' for example has many verses, and if you read all of them it takes you from the creation of the world right through to the whole of Christ's life, including his death and resurrection. It's fascinating, really quite mysterious and certainly not just about Christmas, that's for sure.
What do you personally enjoy about carols?
There is so much variety in there, the richness of the reference and the way they can draw on folk traditions and traditions from other countries. I think this is very inspiring and then there is the work of real composers and poets. I have particular fondness for the poem by Edmund Hamilton Sears, a Unitarian minister in 19th Century Massachusetts, 'It Came Upon the Midnight Clear', which is a beautiful evocation of peace.
In the book you write that 'some carols were born to Christmas, some of them have achieved Christmas, and some have had Christmas thrust upon them.' How did some carols end up in the church if they were never rooted in the Christmas story to begin with?
Our carol tradition draws on so many different things and I think it is important to remember that for much of the history of the church, what was said and sung in a service was a matter of law not just of custom. For our ancestors in the 19th century, the idea of singing devotional poetry, even something like 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing' which is a poem by Charles Wesley, would have been unthinkable in church. What you sang in church was what was in the Bible and the prayer book, and that was it. Hymn singing took off big time through non-conformists like the Wesleys, the Methodists and others and then was embraced by the Anglican church in the 19th century, but even so, the idea of singing something like 'The Holy and the Ivy' or 'I Saw Three Ships' in a church service would have been deeply shocking. They would have considered that extremely unsuitable. And frankly they are right, it's got nothing to do with the liturgy, so that's quite a modern idea. How we've been able to embrace so many different things is very much part of the story and a good thing too, I think.
Will you be attending any carol services with your family?
Absolutely, we already have! Partly because my family and I are still lucky enough to take part. We've recently been carol singing around the streets of Oxford where we live and I'm so thrilled with that tradition, which has been so much a part of the way we do carols. It does seem anecdotally to be picking up a bit and that's lovely. I'm really pleased to be doing that, I'm looking forward to more carol singing and hoping it doesn't rain!
