four-thirty-three

I love Christmas music.  Well, some of it.  Wachet Auf by Bach, Es ist ein Ros entsprungen (Lo, How A Rose E’re Blooming) by Praetorius, “O Holy Night,” the horrible recording a friend gave me of a man literally screaming “O Holy Night” (it’s amazing, I may have to post it this summer)… there is deeply beautiful stuff to listen to this time of year, regardless of where you fall on the believer/heretic continuum.  My all-time favorite carol, I can’t hear or sing it enough, is the Coventry Carol, also called “Lully, lulla, thou little tiny child.”

The Coventry Carol comes to us from Coventry, England in the 1500s, and was first performed in the mystery play The Pageant of the Shearmen and Taylors.  Said pageant  was a retelling of the Christmas story from the Book of Matthew, including the part where King Herod sees the newly born Jesus as a threat and kills all of the male infants in Bethlehem (this charming tale is known as the “Massacre of the Innocents,” and is celebrated on the Roman Catholic calendar as Holy Innocents’ Day).  The song is sung from the perspective of a mother grieving for her murdered child.

The lyrics:

Lully, lulla, thou little tiny child,

By, by, 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 do sing,

By, by, lully lullay?

 

Herod the king, in his raging,

Chargéd he hath this day

His men of might, in his own sight,

All young children to slay.

 

That woe is me, poor child for thee!

And ever morn and day,

For thy parting never say nor sing

By, by, lully lullay!

I love it for a number of reasons (the whole “it’s about killin’ Christmas babies” shock value factor is a small part of it, but not all).  It’s absolutely gorgeous, for starters.  It’s a rare written artifact from a time when folk musical traditions were mostly oral, and gives us insights to what people valued in the past.  There’s a deep undercurrent of pain, of alienation, of fear.  These feelings don’t go away when the music in every shopping mall tells us to be happy (and buy stuff), and I think songs like this help paint a fuller picture of the human condition.

Listen/download: Lully, lulla, thou little tiny child [performed by the Tallis Scholars. 3.8 Mb file.] [Deleted]

I recommend slipping it into holiday party iPod mixes.

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Each phrase in Coventry Carol begins in G minor, but ends in G major.  This method of creating a major-sounding resolution in a minor key is called a “Picardy third.”  I only mention it because I’m at a café and “Wanted Dead or Alive” by Bon Jovi is playing, and that song does the same thing: the last time he plays the D minor riff that opens the song, Richie Sambora ends on a D major chord.  I salute Mr. Sambora’s interest in preserving musical devices from the past, and would also like to recognize Jon Bon Jovi for penning what may be one of the most amazing quatrains in the rock canon:

I walk these streets, a loaded six-string on my back

I play for keeps, ’cause I might not make it back.

I’ve been everywhere, still I’m standing tall,

I’ve seen a million faces, and I’ve rocked them all.

This entry was posted Sunday, December 21st, 2008 at 6:47 pm and is filed under music. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.