A Hymn of Christmas

 

A Hymn of Christmas

On the year of this post, the church Season of Christmas begins on December 24th and ends on January 5th, spanning two Sundays to cover the stories revolving around the Birth of Jesus. This prepares the way for the Season of Epiphany on the church calendar.

In any case, the choice for a Christmas hymn is almost indefatigable in number, so I went with my preferences for this hymn series. I should mention the difference between a Christmas hymn, a Christmas carol, and a Christmas song before I start the post proper.

A hymn is a song meant for a liturgical service, thus its religious purpose is for that of the church. The description of a carol gets a little dicey in description, for it too is most often set upon a religious subject. However, the carol often has elements of a Medieval, Renaissance, or folk-tradition dance. In this way, carols set themselves apart by not necessarily being connected to plainchant, organum, or motets often used in the Catholic church, although elements of these forms of music can be found in early examples of carols. 

Nor do carols need to be about Christmas, for there are Advent carols as well. To make the situation even more confusing, Christmas Carols are often sung during church services out of the hymnbook. So in essence, Christmas Carols can be used as Christmas hymns, but far more often than not, we do not carol with hymns.; although, I am sure there is an exception to that as well. As far as I am aware, the dance rhythms are the main avenue carols are separated from hymns, as well as their use outside of the church despite a religious topic

The Christmas Song (not the Chestnuts Roasting variety) is not related to either, other than a song can be secular or sacred, such as Merry Christmas Darling as sung by Karen Carpenter or Mary, Did You Know? from Pentatonix.

This is all an overlong preamble to my hymn series choice, the Sussex Carol. Happily, there is no pretense as to which song type this is, although I have played this carol at church countless times, and thus have considered it a hymn as well.

The gently rocking time signature of Sussex Carol endears this carol to me, especially at Christmas where a compound meter can musically suggest the rocking of the baby at the manger. You can feel the musical lilt clear to the end, where the tune proclaims the first words of the final sentence out of time, only to wrap things back up again nicely.

The tune of Sussex Carol is one of many wonderful examples where it was discovered from the excursions of Cecil Sharp and Ralph Vaughan Williams, who criss-crossed the English countryside recording Salt-of-the-Earth countryfolk singing folk songs. How many wonderful melodies might we not have known at all if not for these and other chaps going around as ethnomusicologists? In any case, the woman who sang for Vaughan Williams and Sharp lived near Sussex, thus the location became entwined with the Tune Name.

The Sussex Carol tune is one which starts higher in pitch compared to where it ends. It sort-of bounces around in an undulating fashion until the melody finally rests on its home-key pitch. Then the carol simply repeats this first phrase exactly over again for a second time, words and all. 

The melodic motion slows down after the repeated material, decorating the next short phrase by simply moving across scale notes up and back down to the pitch it left from. This is also the moment where the harmonies, usually as arranged by Ralph Vaughan Williams in hymn books, moves away from the key center for its length, setting up a long dominant preparation. Harmonically speaking, particularly after repeating the same phrase twice beforehand, this change is very striking to the ear.

The most recognizable portion are the three long-held notes which takes the song out of its duple rocking motion into a three-beat time, only to finish off this last phrase in the rocking duple it came from. This last phrase encapsulates the starting high in pitch and wending its way down to the home-key center idea as well. Thus, the attention given to this last phrase with longer notes and higher pitch punctuates the meaning of the verse.

Luke Wadding, a 17th-Century Catholic priest known for his Wexford Carols, is often printed as the purveyor of the texts. When Sharp and Vaughan Williams recorded the tune in West Sussex, they also notated words for the melody, thus there are many small differences which have been applied to the Sussex Carol.

This Christmas hymn is often titled On Christmas Night, sometimes with the longer All Christians Sing attached after it. It is a wonderful first verse, where the word 'news' is used to good effect. The listener really gets the feeling of an important announcement, again with the melody starting higher than where the phrase ends.

The second and third verses allude to the Death of Jesus, as many Christmas hymns do, by reminding the singer that through his death, sin is released and life, liberty, and health replace that space. In the final verse, the Angels are mentioned again, bringing back the subject of the opening verse, with a wonderful visual of moving from darkness into the light through the birth of The Child, which is why the Angels were announcing this news in the first place.

As with many familiar Christmas Carols and Hymns, composers have arranged the music countlessly for concert, most famously from Sir David Willcocks (in the video provided below) and of course Vaughan Williams himself used it many times. For me, the idea of a hymn and a carol come down to purpose, rather than definition. This might explain my floundering at the top of the post, but in concert I hear a Christmas Carol in the music, often taken by others to create their musical image for the tune, while the Christmas Hymn remains within the confines of the church doors, to worship together as a congregation.

Where does the Sussex Carol lie for you? Do you enjoy the rocking hymn as I do? If I picked some sister and brother carols similar to On Christmas Night, I also enjoy In Dulci Jubilo (or Good Christian Men Rejoice) and Resonet in Laudibus (or Joseph Dearest, Joseph Mine). There is just something about rocking songs during Christmas which speak to me.