Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872 – 1958) was an English
composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber
music, secular and religious vocal pieces and
orchestral compositions including nine symphonies,
written over sixty years. Strongly influenced by Tudor
music and English folk-song, his output marked a
decisive break in British music from its
German-dominated style of the 19th century.
The "Sussex Carol" is a Christmas carol popular in
Britain, sometimes referred to by its first lin...(+)
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872 – 1958) was an English
composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber
music, secular and religious vocal pieces and
orchestral compositions including nine symphonies,
written over sixty years. Strongly influenced by Tudor
music and English folk-song, his output marked a
decisive break in British music from its
German-dominated style of the 19th century.
The "Sussex Carol" is a Christmas carol popular in
Britain, sometimes referred to by its first line "On
Christmas night all Christians sing". Its words were
first published by Luke Wadding, a late 17th-century
poet and bishop of the Catholic Church in Ireland, in a
work called Small Garland of Pious and Godly Songs
(1684). It is unclear whether Wadding wrote the song or
was recording an earlier composition.
Both the text and the tune to which it is now sung were
discovered and written down by Cecil Sharp in Buckland,
Gloucestershire, and Ralph Vaughan Williams, who heard
it being sung by a Harriet Verrall of Monk's Gate, near
Horsham, Sussex (hence "Sussex Carol"). The tune to
which it is generally sung today is the one Vaughan
Williams took down from Mrs. Verrall and published in
1919.
An earlier version using a different tune and a
variation on the first line, "On Christmas night true
Christians sing", was published as early as 1878 in
Henry Ramsden Bramley and John Stainer's Christmas
Carols New and Old. The carol has been arranged by a
number of composers. Vaughan Williams' setting is found
in his Eight Traditional English Carols.[6] Several
years earlier, Vaughan Williams had included the carol
in his Fantasia on Christmas Carols, first performed at
the 1912 Three Choirs Festival at Hereford Cathedral.
Erik Routley's arrangement in the 1961 University Carol
Book adds a modal inflection to the setting. The carol
often appears at the King's College "Festival of Nine
Lessons and Carols", where it is performed in
arrangements by either David Willcocks or Philip
Ledger, both former directors of music at the chapel.
Willcocks's arrangement appears in the first OUP Carols
for Choirs.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sussex_Carol).
Although originally written for Chorus (SATB) and
Piano, I created this stylized instrumental
interpretation of "On Christmas Night" (Sussex Carol)
for Flute & Strings (2 Violins, Viola & Cello).
PARTITION