Coventry Carol - Collegium Vocale Gent

Used as part of my blog series “My Advent Calendar of Music“ Day #6: Herod The King Performed by Collegium Vocale Gent, conducted by Peter Dijkstra From the Begijnhofkerk, Sint-Truiden (Flanders, Belgium) The Coventry Carol is a Christmas carol dating from the 16th Century. The carol was performed in Coventry as part of a mystery play called The Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors. The play depicts the Christmas story from chapter two in the Gospel of Matthew. The carol refers to the Massacre of the Innocents, in which Herod orders all male infants under the age of two in Bethlehem to be killed. The lyrics of this haunting carol represent a mother’s lament for her doomed child. It is the only carol that has survived from this play. It is notable as a well-known example of a Picardy third. The author is unknown. The oldest known text was written down by Robert Croo in 1534, and the oldest known printing of the melody dates from 1591. The carol is traditionally sung a cappella. There is an alternative setting of the carol by Kenneth Leighton. The only manuscript copy to have survived into recent times was burnt in 1875. Our knowledge of the lyrics is therefore based on two very poor quality transcriptions from the early nineteenth century, and there is considerable doubt about many of the words. Some of the transcribed words are difficult to make sense of: for example, in the last verse “And ever morne and may For thi parting Neither say nor singe“ is not clear. Various modern editors have made different attempts to make sense of the words, so that you may find such variations as “ever mourn and say“, “every morn and day“, “ever mourn and sigh“. The Coventry Mystery Plays, or Coventry Corpus Christi Pageants, are a cycle of medieval mystery plays from Coventry, West Midlands, England, and are perhaps best known as the source of the “Coventry Carol“. They should not be confused (though they often are) with the quite separate N-Town plays, sometimes called the Ludus Coventriae cycle from a former mistaken belief that the N-Town was Coventry. Performances of the Coventry Plays are first recorded in a document of 1392 - 3, and continued for nearly two centuries; the young Shakespeare almost certainly witnessed them before they were finally suppressed in 1579. In its fullest form the cycle comprised at least ten plays, though only two have survived to the present day. Of these two, the Shearmen and Tailors’ Pageant was a nativity play portraying events from the Annunciation to the Massacre of the Innocents, and the Weavers’ Pageant dealt with the Purification and the Doctors in the Temple. The only ancient manuscript of the Shearmen and Tailors’ Pageant was destroyed by fire in 1879, but fortunately it had previously been transcribed and published by Thomas Sharp. The plays were most recently edited by Pamela M. King and Clifford Davidson in The Coventry Corpus Christi Plays (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 2000). Lully lulla, thow littell tine child, By, by, lully lullay, thow littell tyne child, By, by, lully lullay! O sisters too, How may we do For to preserve this day This pore yongling, For whom we do singe By, by, lully, lullay? Herod, the king, In his raging, Chargid he hath this day His men of might In his owne sight All yonge children to slay That wo is me, Pore child, for thee, And ever morne and [may] For thi parting Neither say nor singe, By, by, lully, lullay. (Lully lullay, thou little tiny child, By by lully lullay. Oh sisters too, how may we do For to preserve this day This poor youngling for whom we sing By by lully lullay. Herod the king, in his raging, Charged he hath this day His men of might in his own sight All children young to slay. That woe is me, poor child, for thee, And ever mourn and pray. For thy parting, neither say nor sing, By by lully lullay.) (I do not own the rights to the material used in this video)