Jolly Old King Wenceslas - John Doan
I don't know if I should blame Charles Dickens or British colonialism or what, but many Christmas carols that sound "traditional" to me originated in Victorian times. This song just sounds so proper, the way John Doan has arranged it for toy pianos, parlour guitars, and other period instruments.
Everything "traditional" was once invented, of course, and much of it was viciously controversial. Critics
hated this song. Wikipedia lifts the following quote from the 1928 Oxford Book of Carols:
This rather confused narrative owes its popularity to the delightful tune, which is that of a Spring carol... Unfortunately, Neale in 1853 substituted for the Spring carol this Good King Wenceslas, one of his less happy pieces, which E. Duncan goes for far as to call "doggerel", and Bullen condemns as "poor and commonplace to the last degree". The time has not yet come for a comprehensive book to discard it; but we reprint the tune in its proper setting... not without hope that, with the present wealth of carols for Christmas, Good King Wenceslas may gradually pass into disuse, and the tune be restored to the spring-time.
I thought that was a bit harsh, but then I read the Victorian-era lyrics for the spring carol, and, well:
Herb and plant that winter long, slumbered at their leisure,
Now bestirring, green and strong, find in growth their pleasure;
All the world with beauty fills, gold the green enhancing,
Flowers make glee among the hills, set the meadows dancing.
Well. That's much nicer.
I am now quite disappointed that I only really know about Christmas carols. Is there a whole Victorian repertoire for the other seasons?
Contemplating trying to entice my chorally-inclined friends into some kind of equinox party,
- Tessa