Here's something different: a Christmas carol that mentions Satan and hell
I love Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols. At school, one of my Grade 8 singing set pieces was a solo from these carols. They bring back lovely memories.
A Ceremony of Carols was scored for treble voices and harp. Aged 29 at the time, Britten wrote it en route from New York to Liverpool over U-boat infested waters in 1942. Seven carols were completed during this passage, and he later added the rest, adapting the set to fulfil a commission from the American harpist Edna Philips.
The text Britten used was largely based on medieval carols, lifted from a book (The English Galaxy of Shorter Poems) he picked up when his boat docked in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Humphrey Carpenter, who wrote a biography of Britten in 1992, puts it best: "(It’s) neither a medley of carols…. nor a ceremony." It is rather "a ceremony of innocence, a musical representation of life before the fall". The mystical aura makes it as enigmatic as a Botticelli Nativity.
"This Little Babe" is probably the most famous number of the set, and a favourite of choral groups up and down the country. Structurally clever, it begins with all voices singing in unison – fast – introducing the theme. When Britten repeats the tune, he staggers the entries so that the singers seem to be chasing each other, a musical echo chamber. Yet, skilfully, they arrive simultaneously at the end despite starting at different moments. In the final section the piece launches into an urgent three-part canon. This is difficult music and not at all easy to pull off in performance. Here's the first verse, taken from Robert Southwell's "New Heaven, New War" of 1595:
This Little Babe so few days old, is come to rifle Satan’s fold; All hell doth at his presence quake, though he himself for cold do shake; For in this week unarmed wise the gates of hell he will surprise
This is not your usual sentimental fare: it depicts the baby Jesus winning a battle against evil cosmic powers. Normally the churches like to forget about those at Christmas. How many other carols mention Satan and hell in the same verse?
This article is from my blog on the Daily Telegraph Originally published on 22 Dec 2013
