All language subtitles for BBC.Christmas.Carol.Odyssey.1080p.HDTV.x265.AAC.MVGroup.org.srt - eng(2)

# Oh little town of Bethlehem,

# How still we see thee lie

# Above thy deep and dreamless sleep

# The silent stars go by... #

All around the world, people are
singing Christmas carols,

in cities,

in schools, in pubs, and even
sometimes

still in pretty parish
churches on village greens.

It's the one time of year
when even people who can't sing

think that it's probably OK
if they join in.

Carols are as big a part of
Christmas as mince pies or the tree.

My favourite Christmas carol is
either Jingle Bells,

because it's just ridiculously fun,

or We Wish You A Merry
Christmas.

Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem.

Unquestionably, Oh, Come All
Ye Faithful.

Ding, Dong, Merrily On High.
Silent Night.

While Shepherds Watched, and, Hark,
the Herald Angels Sing

because they're both real belters!

There are hundreds of Christmas
carols

and they're a vital
part of a traditional Christmas.

We take them for granted...

Oh, these are the leaping lords,
are they? Yes.

That's hilarious.

..but each one of them has a really
fascinating history.

Jump! Ooh, la, la.

Carols can take us on a surprising
journey into the past...

..to ancient midwinter revels,

to religious conflict...

It was an oppressed minority.

It's an extraordinarily
dangerous time to live.

..and to a devastating world war.

We heard them singing
Silent Night.

Stille Nacht. Silent Night.
I shall never forget it.

It's one of the highlights
of my life.

The first Christmas songs evolved
from a pagan winter festival...

Quite simply, Christianity takes
it over, gloriously,

and makes it Christmas.

..then they got banned by the
church.

Basically, everything that you could
enjoy doing was bad for your soul -

going to the pub, having fun,
Christmas -

all of these things were out.

But the carol made
a magnificent comeback.

I'm going to find out where the
best-loved

Christmas carols come from
and what gives them their magic.

CHEERING

ACCORDION MUSIC PLAYS

Our story begins with an Anglo-Saxon
tradition

that predates Christmas itself.

The wassail,

a fertility ritual rooted in pagan
magic.

Hello, Lucy. Welcome to our wassail.

Thank you. Thank you.

We're going to bless the apple tree,
as part of our wassail.

Hello, tree. We're going to sprinkle
some cider on the roots. Yes?

We're going to put some
toast on the branches.

We are going to
sing our wassail song,

just to make sure that there will be
a good crop of apples next year.

Brilliant!

Cider from this loving cup,

too much for mortal man to sup,

about thy roots the goodness
spread,

and help you in the year ahead.

If we take some of the bread...
Here you go, Mr Tree.

# Here We Come A-Wassailing

# All on a wintertide

# And here we come to bring
good cheer

# And cast all fear aside

# Love and joy come to you

# And to you, your wassail too

# And God bless you and send you

# A happy New Year

# And God send you a happy
New Year. #

And the last thing we must do

is scare off the evil
spirits from around the orchard.

One, two, three...

JOVIAL ROARING

WHISTLES BLOW AND POTS CLANG

The orchard wassail was part
of a much bigger midwinter blowout

and it had a surprising
influence on the timing of today's

Christmas celebrations.

Why is it that there always seems
to have been a special

festival in the middle of winter?

It's just the perfect
time for a party.

Number one, there's no work,

no fighting, no trading, no farming.

Number two,
it's the dreariest time of the year,

so you really need cheering up.

Put the two together and it's
THE festive season.

And what happens to the Pagan
midwinter festival

when Christianity comes along?

Quite simply,
Christianity takes it over,

gloriously, and makes it Christmas.

If you read the Gospels,
there's nothing in them

to say exactly at what
time of the year Christ was born.

Although, if it's when shepherds
watched their flocks by night,

it's most likely to be in
May or September.

But, in the fourth century, when
Christianity is becoming dominant,

Christmas settles at midwinter,

with this glorious symbolism
of the rebirth of the sun, S-U-N,

becoming that the rebirth of the
son, S-O-N.

And it's just a wonderful
time for festival.

And do you wassail yourself?
Have you got an apple tree?

I have an apple tree
and I wassail it myself, every year.

It never bore any fruit
until I started wassailing.

I've had a bumper crop ever since!
It's such a lovely idea, isn't it?

And it's fun!

To the pub, everyone!

CHEERING

Over the years, wassailers started
visiting homes and ale houses.

# Here we come a-wassailing

# All on the wintertide

# And here we come to bring
good cheer

# And cast all care aside

# Love and joy come to you... #

In return for a blessing,

they expected some food or
money, or a drink.

Is this what you're after?

WILD CHEERING

Oi, oi, oi! Uh-uh-uh!

And that's the origin of
door-to-door carol singing.

ACCORDION MUSIC PLAYS

CLAPPING, WHOOPING AND CHEERING

SLEIGH BELLS

Christmas continued to evolve into a
religious feast

with loads of
merrymaking and excess.

By Tudor times, Father Christmas
had joined the party.

And Christmas carols have always
been at the heart

of the celebrations.

# The holly and the ivy

# When they are both full-grown

# Of all the trees that
are in the wood

# The holly bears the crown... #

It's almost something
you are just born with.

You've heard it since you
were in the belly.

We all know them without knowing how
we know them or why we know them.

The children know it, the adults
know it,

the old people know it, and it's

something that brings together
immediately.

# As white as lily flower

# And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ

# To be our sweet saviour

# Oh, the rising of the sun

# And the running of the deer

# The playing of
the merry organ

# Sweet singing of the choir. #

After the Norman conquest in 1066,
the Anglo-Saxon word wassail

gradually gave way to the
French word carol,

meaning song and dance.

A surprising number of Christmas
carols

get their words
and music from different origins.

DING DONG MERRILY ON HIGH PLAYS

This familiar melody started life as

a 16th-century
French Renaissance dance.

That was beautiful.

Now, that, to me, is Ding, Dong,
Merrily On High,

the Christmas carol. No. No?

It's the Branle de l'Official.

The Branle l'Official?

HE EMPHASISES THE PRONUNCIATION

LUCY MISPRONOUNCES

She's laughing at me!

I can't say the letter R.

SHE STRUGGLES

Yeah, OK. It's a dance.

If you want, I can show you.
Oh, yes.

It's with two step to the left,
one, two,

and two little to the right.
Two little to the right.

And, for the second time,
we have six steps to the left -

with a little jump.

Six steps to the left with
a little jump.

DING DONG MERRILY ON HIGH PLAYS

Jump!

Ooh, la, la!

The man behind this little jig
was Jehan Tabourot,

the canon of the cathedral
in Langres.

France was still Roman Catholic.

But, in the 15th century,
Christianity had begun to splinter.

The Protestants were on the march.

Tabourot hated the
chilly Protestant wind

that was blowing through Europe.

That's because he was a devout
Roman Catholic,

but it's also
because Protestant reformers

were starting to
clamp down on one

of the other things that he loved
and that was dancing.

Tabourot and his dance might easily
have been forgotten,

but he found an ingenious way to
record it for posterity.

Jehan Tabourot invented a new way
of notating dance, with words,

with figures, and also with new
system of notation of the movements.

How does this notation work?

He puts the music on the
vertical... Yes?

..and, on each note, you have the
step you are to do

on this precise note.

Pied gauche largyz -
left foot largyz?

What does that mean?

It's better to show you than to
explain. In fact...

Here it is. Oh, the little man's
doing the largyz. Exactly!

He's standing like this.

Exactly. It's the ancestor of

the second position in
classical ballet, in fact.

So, we have this great
lover of dance.

What does Monsieur Tabourot make

of Protestant reformers?

He says that one of the reasons why
we should like dance is

especially because the reformers,
the Protestants, don't like it.

Protestantism - boo.

So, we have this dancing tune that
turned into

our Christmas carol in
Protestant England.

What do you think Monsieur Tabourot
would have made of that?

He was a festive man.

I think he would have been happy,
but, at the same time,

it's for the Protestants,
so he would be surprised, I think.

# Ding, dong, merrily on high

# In heav'n the bells are ringing

# Ding, dong, verily the sky

# Is riv'n with angels singing

# Gloria

# Hosanna in excelsis

# Gloria

# Hosanna in excelsis... #

The Ding, Dong melody stayed in
France for another 300 years.

But, in 1924, a prolific hymn writer
called George Woodward

came across Tabourot's tune.

He finally paired it up with
the words we sing today.

CHOIR SINGS

Tres elegant!

Thank you.

In 1534, the Protestant Reformation
came to Britain.

Henry VIII embraced the singing
of carols as part of the merry

Tudor Christmas.

But, when Henry died in 1547,

the carol was going to be in
for a bumpy ride.

The new king was Edward VI.

He was a very hot Protestant,
against the old Catholic Church.

At the age of 12, he wrote
a treatise in which he described

the Pope as the Antichrist.

He was pretty much down on all
forms of jollity.

He once told off his elder sister,
Mary,

for enjoying foreign dances
and other merriments that he

thought were inappropriate
for a Christian Princess.

Imagine, then, what he would have
made of Christmas carols.

# All seated on the ground

# The angel of the Lord came down

# And glory shone around... #

Edward was a bit of a killjoy, but
one of his tutors, Christopher Tye,

composed a piece of music that would
become one of our favourite carols.

Tye was the choirmaster here,
at Ely Cathedral.

Andrew Gant has studied the
evolution of church

music during the Reformation.

What sort of music appealed
to Edward VI

and his very Protestant buddies?

It's all about the word,
that's the key thing.

Musically, what
that means is simplicity. The old

Catholic music was complicated
and magnificent to the extent that,

frankly, you can't really hear
the words, even if

you could understand the Latin.

What they needed was simple,
straightforward tunes with words,

in English, which you could hear.

Christopher Tye published his
version of the Act of the Apostles.

This is very much in the tradition
of Protestant music-making.

This is his setting of Chapter 8.

# Scattered,
they were both far and nigh

# And through the regions crept

# Of jury and of samarye

# The 12 only accept. #

It's the tune that we know.
He wrote it! Yes, indeed. Yes.

But Tye's tune wasn't a Christmas
carol yet!

The words came later,

thanks to an even more extreme
group of Protestants, the Puritans.

The Puritans took aim at Christmas.

They saw it as a sort of vestige of
the depraved, old Catholic Church.

This is an ordinance
passed by Parliament in 1644,

explaining what's to
happen at Christmas.

They want to see more solemn
humiliation,

moral remembrance of our sins.
It was to be a day of fasting.

And they definitely wanted to see
less liberty given

to carnal and sensual delights.

So, never mind the carol singing,

they practically
abolished Christmas itself.

Just about the only thing that the
Puritans allowed to be

sung in church were the Psalms,
verses from the Bible,

but one new song
was about to change that.

Towards the very
end of the 17th century,

a new version of the Book of Psalms
is produced,

which contained in it this song
here, which they call

Song Of The Angels At The Nativity
Of Our Blessed Saviour.

It's a paraphrase of a passage
of Scripture, which means

you're allowed to sing it in church
because it's from the Bible.

And look what it says here.

"To St James's tune, or

"any other tune of eight and six
syllables." Ah-ha!

In other words, you can sing it to
any tune you like.

And the poem goes, "While shepherds
watched their flocks by night,

"all seated on the ground,

"the angel of the Lord came down
and glory shone around."

And so it goes on. And there it is,
for the first time, in print.

# While shepherds watched their
flocks by night... #

So, Christopher Tye's 16th-century
tune, combined with

a 17th-century song, it's given us
the carol that we know.

That's right.

# ..and glory shone around. #

So a very Protestant song,
while Shepherds Watched,

was the first Christmas carol to be
approved by the Church of England

and Christopher Tye's
mid-Tudor melody is still the one

most of us sing today.

# On the 12th day of Christmas

# My true love gave to me

# 12 drummers drumming

# 11 pipers piping

# Ten lords a-leaping

# Nine ladies dancing

# Eight maids a-milking

# Seven swans a-swimming

# Six geese a-laying

# Five gold rings

# Four calling birds... #

This jolly carol captures the fun
and games

we now associate with Christmas.

There's an early record of the words
here, in The British Library.

What have we got here, Maddy?

This is a pocket-sized children's
book called Mirth Without Mischief.

Isn't it cute?

And it contains the first reference
to the 12 Days of Christmas.

So, is that a song, or a poem,
or what, at this stage in its life?

I think it would have been what is
referred to as a forfeit game

and so it would have been sung,
well, chanted by children,

and each person repeats the words
said by the previous person but adds

a line to it, it gets longer
and longer and harder to remember.

And if you lose, you forfeit.
You do pay a forfeit.

I think things like tickling was
the forfeit for these kids.

And it's got little pictures in it,
as well.

Yes, it has.
It's got a wood cut for every rhyme.

Oh, these are the leaping lords,
aren't they? The leaping lords, yes.

That's hilarious. That's a lovely
woodcut of the leaping lords.

They are leaping over some
sort of hurdles. Yes, they are.

So, these are the things of the 12
Days of Christmas that we know.

Yes. There are some differences,
though.

For instance, in this
version from the 18th century,

it's "four colly birds"
instead of "four calling birds".

What's a colly bird?

Well, colly was a regional
English expression for coal-black

and we think it came
from the north of England,

so perhaps they're saying, "Four
blackbirds". That's so interesting.

So blackbirds, coal-coloured birds,
become colly birds,

which become calling birds to us.
Precisely, yes.

I think it might be the nicest
little book I've ever seen.

It's certainly lovely.

Christmas, people often say today,
is all about the children,

and this little book shows

that this idea was emerging
in the 18th century.

But the origin of its tune
is a mystery.

As with lots of carols, we don't
know where the tune came from -

it was probably handed down
through generations.

But we do know about one man
who gave the tune a bit of a polish,

and who added a flourish
all of his own.

Frederic Austin was born
in the East End of London in 1872.

He sang for Elgar. He performed
in Wagner's operas at Covent Garden,

but that's not his greatest legacy.

In 1909, Frederic published
an arrangement of the tune

of The 12 Days Of Christmas

and, because he was an opera
singer,

it seems that he added in a bit
specially to show off his voice.

I imagine him belting this out at
the Christmas party.

Frederic's special bit,

where everybody has to become
a diva, is this bit.

# Five gold

# Rings!

# Four calling birds

# Three French hens,
two turtle doves

# And a partridge in a pear tree! #

In the 18th century,

Britain continued to be
a religious battleground

and the Christmas carol was caught
up

in a story of political intrigue
and treason.

British Catholics
were being persecuted

and forced to worship in secret.

Some sought sanctuary
across the Channel.

One of them was the son
of a cloth merchant from Leeds

and his name was John Francis Wade.

As a young man,
he went to Douai in northern France.

At Douai, there was
a special theological college

for English Catholics -

it was even called
the English College.

John Francis Wade produced
hand-drawn copies of sacred texts

and music that were smuggled into
England by aristocratic Catholics.

But in 1789, the French Revolution

forced the English College
to leave France.

And this is where they ended up.

St Edmund's Catholic School is
a direct descendant

of the English College at Douai.

And when the English Catholics
came back,

they smuggled into the country
with them all their treasures,

their sacred relics,
their books, their music.

And in this school's archives,

there's still a song containing
a seditious secret.

# Joyful and triumphant... #

Catholic supporters of the exiled
King James - that's the Jacobites -

aimed to bring down the Protestant
King George. Among them was Wade.

He wanted James' grandson,
Bonnie Prince Charlie,

to take the throne
back for the Stuarts.

What's this tasty thing
we're looking at here?

This is one of the first manuscripts
to include O Come, All Ye Faithful

and it's written
by John Francis Wade.

So, today, this would be
sung in the Church of England,

nothing unusual about that.

But you believe it's got layers of
secret Catholic meaning, don't you?

I do. This is a book
that Wade published in 1773.

This is The Evening-Office
of the Church in Latin and English.

One thing that we notice here
is this very peculiar cryptogram.

We read it from the top
into the middle on each word.

It reads, "Quos anguis Tristi
diro cum vulnere Stravit

"hos sanguis Christi
miro Tum munere lavit",

which roughly means,

"Those bitten with a sad dread
wound by the snake

"will be washed afterward
with a wonderful gift by Christ."

And those words directly correspond
to symbols used in Jacobite poetry.

So the snake, for example,
is obviously King George.

And Christ, of course,
is Bonnie Prince Charlie.

The wonderful gift is
the recovery of the Stuart throne.

So, if you and I were Jacobites,
we might say, "We hate the snake,"

and we would know what we meant.

That's it, and we know that because
we have a Jacobite picture here.

This is an absolutely exquisite
portrait of Bonnie Prince Charlie.

Ooh, and it says "CR", like,
"Charles is king". Precisely.

So now we know that about Wade,

he's clearly using secret Jacobite
images in his other book,

what does that tell us
about Adeste Fideles?

In and of itself, it reads
as an ordinary Christmas carol.

When read against Wade's other work,

it takes on a completely different
hue.

Bethlehem is England,
the faithful are Jacobites.

And "Regem Angelorum..."
That's the king of the angels.

"King of the angels"
is a very ancient pun,

which in fact is
"king of the English".

The Angles.

And of course, any Jacobite would
understand this

as a reference
to Bonnie Prince Charlie.

So, according to Catholics, it means

the king of the English has been
born -

Bonnie Prince Charlie has been born?

This piece is a hymn
to Bonnie Prince Charlie.

"Come and adore him".

# O come, all ye faithful

# Joyful and triumphant

# O come ye, O come ye

# To Bethlehem... #

O Come, All Ye Faithful

was originally sung
only by Catholics,

but its cryptic message was
so well hidden

that non-Catholics started singing
it as well.

# Let us adore him

# O come, let us adore him

# Christ the Lord. #

It was disseminated very widely

because it was just a fantastic
tune.

So the great subversive finally went
mainstream? You might say that.

His own authorship
of the Christmas carol was lost

and its original meaning was lost

and, to some extent, really hasn't
been fully recovered. Till now.

Until now.

# O come, let us adore him

# Christ the Lord. #

In the 18th century, the Christmas
decorations came out again.

Everyone was queueing up
to kiss under the mistletoe.

And the Church of England
was finally persuaded

to open its doors to all Christmas
carols by this cheery tune.

# Hark! The herald angels sing

# Glory to the newborn king

# Hail the Heav'n-born
Prince of Peace... #

On the face of it,

Christmas is the most traditional
thing in the world.

But traditions are slippery things,

and Christmas has actually
been changing its shape constantly

as the centuries go past.

So there's nothing new

about reversioning or freshening up
a Christmas carol.

In fact, in the original version
of Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,

there weren't even any angels there
to hearken to.

# Hark! The herald angels sing

# Glory to the newborn king... #

Its author was Charles Wesley,
one of the great hymn-writers.

He wrote the words
of this much-loved carol,

but you wouldn't have
recognised them back then.

This is what Wesley wrote

in his Hymns and Sacred Poems of
1739, A Hymn for Christmas Day -

"Hark how all the welkin rings".

And it sounds like this.

# Hark how all the welkin rings

# Alleluia

# Glory to the king of kings

# Alleluia. #

So how do we go from that

to the version of the carol that
we'd all recognise today?

To find out,
we have to go back to 1727,

when Charles Wesley and his brother
John

formed a new religious group at
their university

called the Holy Club.

They later became
known as the Methodists.

Now, these Methodists were
nonconformists.

They thought that the Church
of England should be reformed

and one of the big differences
between them and it was music.

The Church of England was still a
bit uptight

about what could
or couldn't be sung,

but the Methodists embraced
the power of communal singing.

# Hark! The herald angels sing

# Glory to the newborn king... #

Wesley's friend, George Whitefield,
was another leading Methodist.

At this church in north London,

he spread their message through
word and song,

and Wesley's hymn
was in his repertoire.

George Whitefield would go on to do
something rather daring

to his friend's words.

20 years after Wesley wrote them,
Whitefield thought,

"We can do better than this."

This word "welkin" is an old word
for the sky, the heavens,

but Whitefield thought that the song
ought to begin

with the Methodists' favourite
activity of singing.

So he changed
"Hark how all the welkin rings"

to "Hark! The herald angels sing".

# Hark! The herald angels sing

# Glory to

# The newborn

# King

# The newborn... #

The new version of the words
is the one that stuck.

But once again, the tune came later,

100 years later,

when the composer Felix Mendelssohn

met an English choirboy,
William Cummings.

Alexandra, can you tell me
the story of William Cummings?

We know he came to
London as a child, with his parents,

and he was obviously very musically
talented from an early age.

He was a chorister
at St Paul's Cathedral.

The next important chapter is 1847.
He's just 15 years old

and he sings in a historic
performance of Elijah,

this was first ever London
performance

of Mendelssohn's great oratorio.

And he was so enthusiastic,
apparently, that Mendelssohn,

who was conducting,
was struck by this young man

and gave him his business card
before he left.

It was a formative
moment for the young man

and he seems to have actively
pursued every opportunity

to get a new score by Mendelssohn,
whenever they were published.

Cummings later became the organist
here, at Waltham Abbey.

One day, while playing

through a Mendelssohn piece called
Festgesang, he had a brainwave.

There's an article in the Musical
Times about this historic moment.

"While playing over the chorus
in Gs",

that's the chorus from
the Mendelssohn Festgesang,

"he was at once struck by its
adaptability

"to the words of
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.

"He copied out the parts

"and the tune was sung with great
enthusiasm

"by the congregation at Waltham
Abbey". In this very church?

In this church, on Christmas Day.
That's just perfect.

"Hark! The herald..."
was too good to resist.

In 1861, the Church of England
published it

in Hymns Ancient and Modern.

The floodgates had opened to
Christmas carols

with words which weren't from the
Bible.

The magical blend of Pagan
and religious words and music

were now welcomed into church.

Actually, there's a wonderful
anarchy to Christmas carols.

These are sort of grassroots
musical gestures.

They're written in the fields,
the streets and the pubs

and they're brought
into the church.

The words were actually
written 100 years earlier

and the music only came along
in a different country,

a different century, to be brought
together by a third man.

It's a wonderful illustration of the
chance involved in the best carols.

They're like mongrels of music,
are they?

There's something fresh and zingy
and exciting about them.

Yeah, this is not music
that we've been forced to sing,

this is music that we wanted to sing
so badly

that the Church was forced to bring
it inside

and put its own stamp on it.

To let us sing it, in fact?
Absolutely.

# Hark! The herald angels sing

# Glory to

# The newborn

# King

# The newborn

# King

# The newborn

# King

# Hark! The angels sing

# The newborn

# Hark! The angels sing

# The newborn

# King

# The newborn king. #

In the 19th century, Queen Victoria
and her beloved Albert

helped create a new image of
Christmas

as a time for family,
home and hearth.

They also inspired
the fashion for Christmas trees.

And a world-famous Christmas carol

started out as a simple little poem
in a magazine.

In 1871, the editor of a New York
magazine

asked an English poet in London
to write a poem for Christmas.

Her name was Christina Rossetti.

She wanted to write something really
special, but she was seriously ill.

She was in a bad way.

She had previously suffered
from what we might call depression

and now she had a really horrible
thyroid problem.

She kept fainting
and having headaches.

Her brother said
she was in a deplorable condition.

But even so, she really wanted to
fulfil this request

and she sent to Scribner's Magazine
a little poem.

They paid her £10 for it.

She called her
work A Christmas Carol

and you probably know how it goes.

# In the bleak midwinter

# Frosty wind made moan

# Earth stood hard as iron

# Water like a stone... #

But Rossetti's poem wasn't ready to
be transformed

into this beautiful Christmas carol
just yet.

Perhaps it was a bit out of step

with the whole idea
of Victorian Christmas,

as recently reinvented
by Charles Dickens.

That was much more about festive
family fun.

Maybe Rossetti's work was too
reflective to become really popular.

What kind of a person would you
say Rossetti was?

I would say Rossetti was
a very wintry person.

She had a very cold,
very reserved exterior.

Was she born that way, or did life
deal her a tough hand?

I think probably both.
She had some sad events in her life.

I think she was the sort of person

who thought very deeply about life
and the human condition,

and anyone who thinks deeply
about the human condition

on a daily basis is bound to wind up
a bit melancholy.

Can you explain some
of the techniques that she uses

to build the very special
atmosphere of the poem?

Well, she uses monosyllabic words,
moan and stone,

and then snow,

and this creates a sense of monotony
and fallenness.

And the snow, it does fall on snow,
doesn't it?

It gives you a sense of that
cumulative effect

of mournfulness and sadness,

although there is a kind of
predictor

of something happier happening
because, unlike stone,

snow is something a bit softer.

Imagine a kind of glitter effect.

A bit of magic is about to happen.

Do you think that she thought
it might end up being sung?

She calls it a carol,
as if it was supposed to be sung.

I imagine that she hoped
it would become a carol.

She always wanted to write
an important English hymn.

# What can I give him...? #

Christina Rossetti never got to see
her poem

become the carol we know today.

She died on 29th December, 1894.

# I would bring a lamb... #

In 1906, a young composer
called Gustav Holst

wrote this melody for it.

# I would do my part

# Yet what I can, I give him

# Give my heart. #

Another composer, Harold Darke,
wrote a different tune

and this is the one that's often
the favourite of musicians.

# In the bleak midwinter

# Frosty wind made moan

# Earth stood hard as iron

# Water like a stone

# Snow had fallen, snow on snow

# Snow on snow

# In the bleak midwinter

# Long

# Ago. #

There's something very female about
this carol, to me, is that fair?

I think there absolutely is
something female about this carol

and that's very deliberate
on Rossetti's part.

I think the most important
word in this poem is "enough".

She writes, "Enough for him...

"..a breastful of milk
and a manger full of hay".

Actually, it's enough for him

to have a very warming breastful
of milk.

And this is where
the carol starts to melt,

so all that frostiness warms up
with the mother's heart.

I asked my students,

"What do you think is the perennial
appeal of this carol?"

And one of them just looked at me
and told me,

"I can't really explain why this
poem appeals to me so much,"

but I felt,
"Well, you have explained

"because you've just touched
your heart

"and you've shown us
the appeal of Christina Rossetti,

"in that she appeals to our hearts".

I don't think Rossetti's carol

has got into the Christmas canon
despite its melancholy -

I think it's got in
BECAUSE of its melancholy.

There is something bittersweet about
Christmas, isn't there?

It makes you think of the people
that you used to celebrate it with

who aren't around any more.

The heroine of this carol
is definitely the mother,

so, if it means anything today,
it's surely, "Phone your mum".

In the 1860s, to escape the horrors
of the American Civil War,

a pastor called Phillips Brooks

made a trip from Philadelphia
to the Holy Land.

When he reached the village
where Jesus was born,

he was inspired
to write these words.

"O little town of Bethlehem,
how still we see thee lie.

"Above thy deep
and dreamless sleep,

"the silent stars go by".

The Reverend Phillips Brooks
took his poem back to Philadelphia,

where he got the organists of his
church to write a tune for it,

and it became a much-loved
Christmas carol

that's still sung to this day -

at least in America.

The story in Britain
is quite a bit different.

In 1903, the English composer
Ralph Vaughan Williams

was setting out on a pilgrimage of
his own. He grew up here, in Surrey.

He was passionate
about the countryside

and he tried to capture it musically
in pieces like The Lark Ascending.

And his other passion
was English folk songs.

He once said that
they are beautiful and immortal.

They belong to us all,

high and low, rich and poor,

sing what we like
and like what we sing.

We, the singing English.

And in December 1903,
he came from his house up there

and he went off down this hill

on a mission to capture
for posterity

the very best English folk songs.

Hello! Hello, there.
Can I get a lift with you? Yes.

Off we go!

In the village where
Vaughan Williams lived,

the meat was delivered
by the local butcher in a cart,

and the cart was often driven
by the assistant butcher,

who was a man called Frank Lawrence.

Frank was a bit of a star
of the local church choir.

He had a really lovely, deep,
bass voice.

And he loved folk songs nearly
as much as Vaughan Williams did.

What's more,
Frank knew where to find them.

Hey, Dan, have you got a lovely,
deep, bass voice? Not really, no!

The butcher introduced Vaughan
Williams to a man with a tune

that would work perfectly
in a new book of hymns.

On one of Vaughan Williams'
trips

around the Surrey villages
that Christmas,

he was introduced to another man
who was full of songs -

this one was called Mr Garman.

Irene Shettle is a Surrey folk
singer.

Your good health, Irene.

Thank you.

She's been investigating how
Mr Garman helped Williams

to create one
of our favourite carols.

What's this document you've
got on the table here?

That is actually the manuscript
book,

a page on which there is a song

that was sung to Vaughan Williams
by Henry Garman.

He collected about five
songs from Henry Garman on the day

and he sang this one, which is The
Ploughboy's Dream. How did it go?

TO MELODY OF
O LITTLE TOWN OF BETHLEHEM:

# I am a ploughboy stout and strong

# As ever drove a team

# Now three years
since I slept in bed

# I had a dreadful dream

# Now since the dream has done me
good, I put it down in rhyme

# That other boys might read
and sing

# Whenever they have time. #

That was beautiful. Thank you.

And that is practically O Little
Town Of Bethlehem, isn't it?

It's virtually the same.
And how old was he? 73.

And he was still at work
as a labourer. Yes.

Obviously, it was a bit
of a hard life.

Did he live to see his song become
an official Christmas carol?

Sadly, no. He died almost two years,
almost exactly two years,

after it had been collected from
him, on Boxing Day in 1905.

And Vaughan Williams co-edited
the English hymnal

with Percy Dearmer.

It came out in 1906

and that's where his arrangement
of O Little Town Of Bethlehem

first came out.

I sometimes do wonder what
he would have thought

if he knew what had happened to
his song,

that we all sing that tune every
year and know it so well.

To know he'd given that to the rest
of us

is for me quite something, actually.

Let's have a little toast
to Mr Garman. To Mr Garman.

Thanks, Mr Garman. Yes, indeed.

Hope you're not working too
hard in the fields of heaven.

# O little town of Bethlehem

# How still we see thee lie

# Above thy deep and dreamless sleep

# The silent stars go by

# Yet in thy dark streets shineth

# The everlasting light

# The hopes and fears
of all the years

# Are met in thee tonight. #

Christmas is seen as a time
for eating and drinking and family.

Whatever the reality of this
might be in our homes,

it's also supposed to be
a time of peace.

But our final carol was born
out of conflict and destruction,

and it's perhaps
the most beautiful of them all.

In 1816, a young curate arrived

at his first posting
in a small village near Salzburg.

Joseph Mohr
had lived through turbulent times.

The Napoleonic Wars
had torn Austria apart.

In 1816, just as Mohr was
beginning his first job,

things settled down with
the defeat of Napoleon.

These wars had completely
devastated this part of Europe.

Half a million Austrians had died
and, with this in mind,

Mohr was inspired to write a poem.

His motivation comes out
in the ending of the first verse.

It concludes with the words -
"sleep in heavenly peace".

# Stille Nacht

# Heilige Nacht

# Alles schlaeft

# Einsam wacht

# Nur das traute,
hochheilige Paar... #

It was a simple, heartfelt
response to the recent conflict,

but it would become one of the
most popular carols in the world.

# Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh

# Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh. #

Joseph Mohr went on to become
the parish priest here in Oberndorf.

But he hadn't
forgotten about his poem,

and the story goes
that, on Christmas Eve 1818,

Mohr walked across town to find the
local church organist, Mr Gruber.

He wanted to ask Gruber to write
a tune to go with his words,

but here's the challenging part -

he wanted it done that day so that
they could perform it that night.

This is the Silent Night Chapel.

It was built to commemorate
the first performance of the carol,

which was accompanied by guitar
at midnight mass.

What have you brought to show me?

This is the oldest written record
of Silent Night.

Melody by...

Franz Xaver Gruber.

And text by Joseph Mohr in 1816.

That says Christmas song,
Weihnachts Lied.

Is it true, the story of how the
music for Silent Night

was written in one afternoon? We
think that's exactly what happened.

It is quite plausible because the
song itself,

it's not too complicated.

The chord progression is
quite simple.

What can you tell me
about the first performance?

According to the eyewitness, Mr
Gruber himself, he was the bass.

And Joseph Mohr, his friend,
the priest,

sang the top line of the song.

On Christmas Eve.
On Christmas Eve, 1818.

Why do you think that they chose
the guitar?

That's not an instrument
that I associate with the church.

That's where the guitar
actually comes in.

It's a song for the people,
from the people.

It was an instrument that you would
find in taverns and bars,

and I think that's what made
it connect to the people

because the guitar was something
that they knew from outside the
church.

Now, this song, Silent Night,

has made this little town famous
all over the whole world.

Why do you think that
the song works globally?

The simplicity is what translates
into any language and any culture

and that is what works with pop
songs in general.

You would describe it as a pop song?
Exactly.

I think it's in the top rank
of the Christmas charts.

# Silent night

# Holy night

# All is calm

# All is bright

# Round yon Virgin Mother
and child... #

Silent Night went around the world.

It's been translated into more
than 230 different languages.

And its place in history was
secured during the First World War.

It happened in northern France,
on Christmas Eve 1914.

By this time, the Germans
and the British

had dug themselves into
their trenches,

about a stone's throw apart.

Some soldiers' families had sent
them

tiny little Christmas trees
made out of pipe cleaners.

They had these in the trenches.

They lit candles, they'd done
everything they could

to make themselves feel
a bit better.

One man who was there
in the trenches that night

was called Albert Moren.

It was a Christmas card
Christmas Eve.

There was white beautiful moonlight,
frost on the ground,

almost white everywhere.

And round about seven
or eight in the evening,

we heard this singing and a lot of
commotion, and we saw some lights.

I didn't know what they were,

and later we heard them

singing Silent Night. Stille Nacht.

I shall never forget it. It's

one of the highlights of my life.

I thought, "What a beautiful tune".

And then Albert and
the British soldiers sang back.

It turned into
an impromptu carol service.

# Holder Knabe im lockigen Haar... #

Across northern France and Belgium,

it's been estimated that
around 100,000 soldiers took part

in this spontaneous Christmas truce.

Some soldiers from both sides
climbed out of the trenches

and met up in the middle.
They sang carols.

Some gave each other Christmas
presents, things like tobacco.

Some even played football,
while others took the opportunity

to bury the bodies of their comrades
who'd fallen in no man's land.

Of course,
the truce didn't last for long,

but the carols had worked
their magic.

Just for a little while,
they'd brought comfort

and comradeship
and a little bit of peace.

# Sleep in heavenly peace

# Ooh

# Oh, silent night

# Holy night

# Shepherds quake at the sight... #

Carols have been with us for as long
as we've celebrated Christmas,

so it's not surprising that the
story of the carol

turns out to be a history
of Christmas itself.

# Heavenly hosts sing alleluia... #

And that's because they are
the people's music.

They're genuinely pop music,
in the sense that they're popular,

of the people, and they constantly
change as society changes.

Most of all, though,
they reflect a really ancient need

that people have always felt

to celebrate together
and to sing together at Christmas.

# Oh, ooh. #