A December afternoon, and I’m watching the afternoon sky turn from light to dark grey to black. An overgrown holly bush waves vigorously at me through the window. It is a stark backdrop, but one softened by an ancient magic from my speakers as I take a deep dive into my favourite early Christmas Carols. By this I mean ‘early’ as in properly ancient, rather than from the seasonal pop classics of the 80s or 90s (although I have a lot of favourites from then too), and neither am I talking about Victorian hymns or classical pieces. My love of early carols means going all the way back, not just one hundred years or so, but to when some of my favourite music was created. If you plugged in headphones to my constant internal musical streaming monologue you would find the music playing on the pre-wax pre-cylinder would be from the fifth to seventeenth centuries – and this is where we will find the origins of festive music.
A carol didn’t used to specifically refer to a piece of Christmas music, but a seasonal song from any point throughout the year. The most famous non Christmas carol is a summer one, ‘Sumer Is Icumin’ which dates from the mid thirteenth century. I could go deep into the fraught subject of ‘what is a carol?’, but for now I want to share with you my top list of old Christmas music.
An important consideration when choosing with the early music of long dead and anonymous composers is to find the performances that most resonate with you. There are countless versions of the following songs and tunes, but I have trawled and listened and searched, and these are the versions you need to hear. I hope you will agree that this selection sounds as fresh and crisp as a medieval winter’s day. Imagine yourself in a thatched cottage (which I have decorated in greenery from the nearby hedgerow), and immerse yourself in this ancient music, it will get you through the darkest season. So enjoy this selection of ancient music and instruments, baroque bowed fiddles, rousing choruses, renaissance serpents, bagpipes and more. It’s a mixture of the old and new, popular and unpopular, sacred and secular, festive, melancholy and experimental. Merry Christmas and Happy Yuletide to you all.
The Academy of Ancient Music – ‘For Unto Us A Child Is Born‘ (from Handel’s Messiah)
I’ve chosen this performance by The Academy of Ancient Music because they have a sense of brightness and energy in their sound. They play on period instruments, meaning that the fiddles, violas, cellos and basses are strung with gut instead of metal strings, this gives a more intimate sound clos…
