s Thoughts from the Physics Chick: Christmas carols: Sussex carol

Friday, May 29, 2009

Christmas carols: Sussex carol

The earliest version of the text for this carol was first published in 1684, but it languished in obscurity until Ralph Vaughan Williams found it and published it in the Journal of the Folk-Song Society in 1892.

One of the tricky things about blogging more popular carols is that, the more popular a carol is, the more recordings I have to listen to if I want to find the undiscovered gems (or the truly weird). I listened to over 30 recordings just for this carol, and it's not even one of the more popular ones. (There's a reason I haven't done anything like "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," yet.) Anyway, I think I found some gems — enjoy!


Choir of King's College, Cambridge, 2008:



A traditional arrangement for boys' and men's choir and organ.


Paul Kara Ross & Ben Bauman, 2005:



A Celtic-inspired instrumental version.


College of the Sequoias Men's Chorus, 2007:



An arrangement for men's choir and piano.


Bonus: Keith Houghton, 2008:



A little something for the accordion lover in your life.


Honorable Mention:

A lovely MoTab version which I can't embed.

2 Comments:

At May 29, 2009 6:52 PM, Blogger krebscout said...

No way, that's for the concertina lovers in our lives

 
At May 29, 2009 10:02 PM, Blogger Katya said...

Yeah, I know, but I figured most people wouldn't know what a "concertina" was and "free reed musical instrument" is just . . . wordy.

 

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