Christmas Carols: A Musical History

Dan Snow's History Hit

History Hit

History

4.7 • 12.9K Ratings

🗓️ 27 December 2022

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Traditionally sung at Christmas itself or during the surrounding Christmas holiday season, it is thought that carols existed to keep up people’s spirits, along with dances, plays and feasts since before the fourteenth century. Whether religious or not, the singing of Christmas carols is a tradition enjoyed by many every year, but do we know why?

Author of ‘Christmas Carols: From Village Green to Church Choir,’ composer and choirmaster Andrew Gant joins Dan for this carol-filled episode of the podcast. Andrew and Dan discuss why we sing Christmas carols and how they came to hold the magic enjoyed by so many. Accompany Dan and Andrew in the festive spirit as delve into the history of one of our best-loved musical traditions and the surprising stories behind a handful of well-known seasonal songs.

Audio courtesy of Signum Records.

This episode was first broadcast on 24 December 2021.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello folks, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit.
0:03.3	Christmas week, we're talking about Christmas carols, those...
0:06.3	Christmasy songs that we still love singing, even if like me,
0:09.2	you don't really believe in the words you're actually singing,
0:11.6	but they are wonderful nonetheless.
0:15.4	It comes a time in every festive season when we jettison some of the popular music,
0:19.5	and we've got the carols on.
0:20.4	In our family, that's when Christmas goes up a gear.
0:22.8	When you hear heart, the herald angel sing,
0:24.4	when you hear the Christmas carols wafting through the house.
0:28.0	It means that you've put aside work for the year.
0:31.0	You've even put aside the wild Christmas parties.
0:33.4	It's time to double down on family and get in the food going.
0:37.2	That's the tradition in my family.
0:38.8	It's a calming presence in us.
0:40.2	It's a centering of the Christmas spirit.
0:43.0	I love it.
0:43.9	And now in this episode, we're going to be talking all about the history of Christmas carols.
0:46.9	We're talking to Andrew Gantt.
0:48.5	He was an organist, choir master and composer at her majesty's Chapel Royal
0:52.8	for more than a decade from 2013.
0:55.8	He was a composer, and he's written several books on musical subjects.
	...

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