Around Town

Carol concerts on this week

On Thursday December 6 at 6pm, the choir of St Martin in the Fields will gather round the newly erected Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square and sing carols as its lights are switched on for the first time. Despite the references to herald angels and babies born in Bethlehem, the ceremony has a distinctly pre-Christian timbre, with its elements of druidic tree worship and the kind of sympathetic magic that uses lights to encourage the sun to return from its winter hibernation. Carolling, too, has a long history, and some of our best-loved songs even retain some of their pagan heritage. Feature continues

Take ‘The Holly And The Ivy’. First collected by folk archivist Cecil Sharp, it appears to be based on an ancient song called ‘The Contest of the Ivy and the Holly’, which depicted a battle between the emblems of femininity and masculinity and had nothing to do with Christianity at all. In some versions of the carol, ‘the playing of the merry organ’ was even written as ‘the playing of the merrier gods’, which clearly couldn't be allowed to survive in later transcriptions.

Royal Albert Hall Christmas Festival

Of course it’s gentlemen who are merry in ‘God Rest You…’ – or are they? The official title of the carol is ‘God Rest [ie make] You Merry, Gentlemen’, which is an exhortation to cheer up rather than have a bit of a lie down – not that that stopped Charles Dickens, in ‘A Christmas Carol’, rendering it as ‘God Bless You, Merry Gentlemen’. Indeed, those over-optimistic urchins singing through Scrooge’s keyhole were carrying on another ancient tradition, going back to feudal times. In a kind of legalised begging, wassailing peasants would sing outside the Lord’s manor in return for food and drink – hence the demands for figgy pudding and the slightly sinister ‘we won’t go until we get some’ in ‘We Wish You A Merry Christmas’. The practice spread to America, where it became a famous excuse for rowdiness, and probably inspired the trick-or-treat tradition during that other deeply pagan festival, Halloween. Sadly, trick-or-treating, now exported back to England, seems to have pretty much killed off the gentler house-to-house tradition of wassailing.

Arguably, outdoor carolling is more historically authentic than the church-bound version popular today. A hangover from Puritan anti-singing prejudice meant that carols were banned from churches until the middle of the nineteenth century. But the Victorian reinvention of Christmas changed that, and many new songs, heavy on piety rather than revelling, were written in this era. ‘Good King Wenceslas’ and ‘It Came Upon a Midnight Clear’ both date back to the 1850s, while ‘In The Bleak Midwinter’ was written as a poem by Christina Rossetti around 1872. By this time, William B Sandys’ ‘Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern’, published in 1833, had already brought traditional songs including ‘God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen’ , ‘The First Noël’, ‘I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing In’ and ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’ to a wider public. Incidentally, the last was originally written as ‘Hark! How All the Welkin Rings’ in the eighteenth century, so we must be grateful to later tweakers for the rousing version we have now.

So what is it about these songs that makes them so stirring? Personally I find it impossible to get through a rendition of ‘Silent Night’ or ‘Once In Royal David’s City’ without bursting into tears, but my reaction to these nineteenth-century crowd-pleasers probably has more to do with sentiment and nostalgia than anything inherent in the music. Some of the more ancient carols, though, get their haunting quality from the medieval chord patterns they retain; ‘A Coventry Carol’, originally sung as part of a mystery play and dating back at least to the 1500s, is a perfect example, though its unfashionable baby slaughtering theme means it’s fallen out of favour in recent years.

Will modern carols cut the mustard in later centuries? ‘Little Drummer Boy’, written in 1941 by the American songwriter Katherine K Davis, seems to be holding up well, as does 1959’s 'Little Donkey’, by Eric Boswell from Wearside. Crucially, they’re both aimed squarely at children, and anything that can cause a rush of golden memories in later years is bound to survive. Unfortunately, that means future generations will probably dab their eyes to the warbling of various 'X Factor’ winners.

The Trafalgar Square Christmas tree is in place Dec 6 -Jan 4.

Carol services
Carol Service with Kate Adie
Dec 5 at St Mary Abbots Church, W8.
The broadcaster gives a reading for Hope and Homes for Children’s annual Christmas carol service, in a Gilbert Scott church that can boast the tallest spire in London.

VSO Christmas Concert by Candlelight
Dec 6 at St Martin-in-the-Fields, WC2.
The City of London Choir leads this year’s concert, with South African a capella group U’Zambezi and a closing address by VSO president Jonathan Dimbleby.

Friends of Thomas Coram Concert
Dec 8 at St Andrew’s Holborn, EC4.
The Kingston Chamber Orchestra performs works by Rossini, Mozart and others in aid of children’s charity Coram’s work with vulnerable children and their families.

Art Fund Carols
Dec 11 at St Luke’s Chelsea, SW3.
Festive readings by Joanna Lumley, Ben Okri and David Starkey in aid of The Art Fund charity.

Kids For Kids Candlelit Christmas Concert
Dec 12 at St Paul’s Knightsbridge, SW1.
Alastair Stewart, Timothy West, Ruth Rendell and Prunella Scales read at this concert featuring the Trumpeters of the Grenadier Guards and The St Andrew’s Singers. Kids for Kids supports families in Darfur with donations of goats.

Prostate UK Carol Concert
Dec 13 at St Paul’s Knightsbridge, SW1.
With music from the Sheldon Consort, London Oratory School Schola and Emerald Ensemble, and readings by Anthony Andrews, Ken Loach and Corin Redgrave.

Carols with Voicelab
Dec 14 at Royal Festival Hall, SE1.
Sing along with Southbank Centre’s Voicelab choir to Christmas carols of all kinds. Song sheets provided.

Royal Albert Hall Christmas Festival
Dec 15-24 at Royal Albert Hall, SW7.
Leading up to Christmas Eve with at least one concert each day, this festival features traditional carol concerts and themed evenings including the family-friendly Santa’s Christmas Cracker (Dec 20).