If you send your students to your family dictionary this month they will be able to report back that a carol is “a song of praise or joy, especially for Christmas,” and that “to carol” is therefore “to sing in a loud, joyous manner” and specifically “to go from house to house singing Christmas songs.”
December is Homeschool Holiday Music Month in the River Houses, and throughout the month we’re sharing an assortment of seasonal favorites in a great variety of styles and genres — classical and modern, sacred and secular, serious and silly — along with a collection of easy educational notes that will let you teach little musical lessons all along the way.
Yesterday we introduced the great modern carol-composer John Rutter (b. 1945), and today we’ll listen to and learn about another of Rutter’s best-known carols, a work that is now performed by choirs all around the world: “What Sweeter Music.”
“What Sweeter Music” is a setting of a seventeenth-century carol-text by the English poet Robert Herrick (1591–1674) and the music was composed by Rutter for his friends and colleagues at King’s College of Cambridge University. The chapel of King’s College, constructed from the late 1400s through the early 1500s, is one of the most famous architectural spaces in the world, and that’s where you see the carol being performed in the video above. (We’re going to have a special live event coming up on Christmas Eve from the King’s College Chapel — watch for news of it here.)
A Christmas Carol
What sweeter music can we bring
Than a carol, for to sing
The birth of this our heavenly King?
Awake the voice! Awake the string!Dark and dull night fly hence away!
And give the honour to this day
That sees December turn’d to May.Why does the chilling winter’s morn
Smile like a field beset with corn?
Or smell like a meadow newly-shorn,
Thus on a sudden? Come and see
The cause why things thus fragrant be:
‘Tis he is born, whose quickening birth
Gives life and luster, public mirth,
To heaven and the under-earth.We see him come, and know him ours,
Who, with his sunshine and his showers,
Turns all the patient ground to flowers.The darling of the world is come,
And fit it is we find a room
To welcome him. The nobler part
Of all the house here is the heart,
Which we will give him; and bequeath
This holly and this ivy wreath
To do him honour, who’s our King,
And Lord of all this revelling.What sweeter music can we bring
Than a carol for to sing
The birth of this our heavenly King?
If you prefer American to English accents, here’s another wonderful recording of “What Sweeter Music,” from the student choir of St. Olaf College in Minnesota — a place some talented homescholars might well end up some day.
I have no doubt that “What Sweeter Music,” like many of Rutter’s other carols, will continue to be sung for many generations to come. Why not introduce this modern masterpiece to your students this month and make it their friend for life.
What marvelous musical discoveries will you be making in your homeschool during this delightful Holiday Music Month? 🎄 🎵
❡ Frozen music: You can teach a little architectural lesson today as well. The opening twenty seconds of the first video above shows the ceiling of King’s College Chapel, a famous example of fan vaulting, one of the most distinctive features of late Medieval and early-modern Gothic architecture. (If you look up “fan vault” in your River Houses dictionary you’ll find it defined and illustrated.) And you can also note that some of the singers in the King’s College Choir may be about the same age as your own homeschoolers. 😊
❡ Literary lives: The website of the Poetry Foundation includes biographical notes and examples of the work of many important poets (including Robert Herrick) that are suitable for high school students and homeschool teachers. ✒️
❡ Musical memories: If you’d like to fill your homeschool with some beautiful background sounds during the holidays, why not tune in to the 24-hour Holiday Channel from WQXR, the famous classical music radio station in New York City. “Enjoy the sounds of orchestras, choirs, brass ensembles and more as we celebrate the sacred and secular sounds of the season.” I have it on as background music almost every day at this time of year. Won’t you join me? 📻
❡ Olden times and ancient rhymes: What did the Christmas season sound like a hundred years ago and more? Find out from this wonderful collection of historic recordings of American Christmas music, brought together by the Library of Congress. 🎄
❡ Lift every voice: This is one of our occasional posts on Homeschool Arts & Music. Add your name to our weekly mailing list and get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 🗞
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