Voices At The Door (Midwinter Songs And Carols) - Various Artists

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It is called Voices at the door.
The CD has 17 tracks. All are unaccompanied except the last one and I will say more about this later.
The tracks are:-
1. How Beautiful Upon The Mountains 2.08
2. While Shepherds Watched/Hail Chime On 3.29
3. Curly Hark/Newtons 3.16
4. While Shepherds Were Watching 2.36
5. Holy Well 4.36
6. Bodmin Wassail 2.27
7. Barwell Old Hark 3.39
...
...While Shepherds Watched/Liverpool 2.31
10. Wexford Carol 3.28
11. Innocent's Song 2.16
12. George Dunn's Wassail 3.00
13. First Good Joy Our Mary Had 4.04
14. Star Of Bethlehem 3.51
15. Adam Lay Ybounden/Deo Gracias 1.52
16. Jacob's Well 3.32
17. Ding Dong Merrily On High 3.12
Total running time is 54.13 minutes

The tune for track 17 is a rather old one first published ... more

It's supposed to be the season of goodwill to all men. The rush to the shops for presents (assaults and battery's included). It's that season of the year again when the television has Christmas adverts on. The P C brigade is in the news papers again seemingly trying to put anything that reminds us of Christianity into the dustbin of history in case it offends somebody, (They have. Me).

I spend quite a lot of time listening to Classic F M radio and they are now playing a lot of carols by various artists. I suppose that you could say I am a terrible old reactionary when it comes to music. On the whole I prefer classical to modern, instrumental to vocal. For preference I like music played on period or original instruments. That does not mean that I do not like modern orchestrations. There are some that I do and there is even some "pop" music that I like. A lot of opera I find totally incomprehensible, Yes the singers are talented and the tunes are very tuneful but I seldom if ever understand the words, even when they are sung with great clarity and diction. The human voice can be a marvellous, precise instrument. There are many fine operas that have had arias lifted from them for performance by internationally famous artists.

Sometimes I have found that these artists and choirs are technically brilliant bringing out many a nuance from the works of the composer. But I have also found that for all the technical brilliance there may sometime be a lack of emotion. They do sing happy or sad songs and can convey these emotions but they do not always seem as if they are enjoying themselves. This may be the case for many professionals. Some amateur choirs may be enjoying themselves but sing rather poorly.

However I have heard some carols for unaccompanied voice, accapella I believe they call it. They have been performed by Coope, Boyce & Simpson et al. So I bought the CD.

It is called Voices at the door.
The CD has 17 tracks. All are unaccompanied except the last one and I will say more about this later.
The tracks are:-
1. How Beautiful Upon The Mountains 2.08
2. While Shepherds Watched/Hail Chime On 3.29
3. Curly Hark/Newtons 3.16
4. While Shepherds Were Watching 2.36
5. Holy Well 4.36
6. Bodmin Wassail 2.27
7. Barwell Old Hark 3.39
8. Time To Remember The Poor 4.13
9. While Shepherds Watched/Liverpool 2.31
10. Wexford Carol 3.28
11. Innocent's Song 2.16
12. George Dunn's Wassail 3.00
13. First Good Joy Our Mary Had 4.04
14. Star Of Bethlehem 3.51
15. Adam Lay Ybounden/Deo Gracias 1.52
16. Jacob's Well 3.32
17. Ding Dong Merrily On High 3.12
Total running time is 54.13 minutes

The tune for track 17 is a rather old one first published in 1589 though these words were not written for it until 1924.

There is a booklet giving details of the performers and details of the carols themselves included with the CD. I will admit to learning some things that I never knew about some of these carols.

You will note that there are three versions of While Shepard's Watched, each with a different melodic line. These are all sung very clearly, You can hear all the words with great clarity.

These may be called Folk music as it was the ordinary folk who sang these songs. They could have a set of words written and try them out against some well known tunes that were already in use for other purposes. That way a population that may well be illiterate could recognise the tunes and hum along and pick up the words as they went along.

I feel that these songs are sung for the enjoyment of the singing and to celebrate the birth of the Christ. We may have lost a lot of the religiousness of our festivals in commercialisation but here I feel these get back to what it used to mean at Christmas.
Weather you believe in any God or not is up to you. I am not trying to convert you to this or that religion. Everybody has to make up their own minds. But songs sung for the joy of the singing and to celebrate a special day are themselves special.

Priced at £10.98 from Amazon.co.uk
Disc produced by No Masters
If ordered now you won't get it by Christmas but see others by same persons. There may be some for sale in mainline music shops or other on-line providers

I hope that you will have a happy Christmas whatever your faith or religion 

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