Origins: Coventry Carol: the power of a song

Subject: Origins: Coventry Carol: the power of a song
From: Stower
Date: 24 May 16 - 11:54 AM

The mystery play that carried Coventry Carol was traditionally performed at Corpus Christi, falling this year on 26th May. The song and play have only been preserved through acts of good timing and good luck, surviving the general loss of many period artefacts, royal suppression of its staging, and a devastating fire that destroyed the original document. Click here for an article tracing the troubled history of the song and the play cycle that carried it, with a video performing the song and telling of its first powerful hearing by the performer.

Subject: RE: Origins: Coventry Carol: the power of a song
From: leeneia
Date: 24 May 16 - 08:34 PM

I read your article, Stower. But I wish you would use darker print. I agree that the Coventry Carol is a very moving song.

Subject: RE: Origins: Coventry Carol: the power of a song
From: Pete from seven stars link
Date: 25 May 16 - 11:11 AM

Interesting stuff, and I had not heard it before. Unable to get the linked vid but looked up on you tube , one choir version and Annie Lennox with African children's choir which I quite liked.    At the risk of being moved below the line.....I noticed the article doubts the incident actually happened despite the historical evidence that this is perfectly in character for herod . Just to note, that there are a number of biblical things once doubted by secularists but which historical discoveries have now validated.

Subject: RE: Origins: Coventry Carol: the power of a song
From: Jack Campin
Date: 25 May 16 - 12:31 PM

...the Massacre of the Innocents not being one of them.

Subject: RE: Origins: Coventry Carol: the power of a song
From: Stower
Date: 25 May 16 - 01:15 PM

Thank you all for contributing.

leeneia, you've raised darker characters before on Early Music Muse. There isn't anything I can do about that but you can - just turn your screen resolution down.

Pete from seven stars link, I've never thought of myself as a secularist or an anythingist, really! I'm just interested in the evidence, as Jack Campin says. There is no evidence for the slaughter of the innocents, no one but Matthew mentions it, not even the other Gospels, and it seems highly strange that such a major and catastrophic event, if real, would be missing from contemporary accounts - Josephus, for example. In any case, Matthew, who was keen to stress Jesus' Jewishness, seems to have borrowed the story from Moses' childhood.

Anyway, I don't really want to get caught up in questions of biblical historicity. Such concerns are a footnote in my article about the story of the song and its power. Pete, I checked the video link and don't know why it didn't work for you - but here it is.

Subject: RE: Origins: Coventry Carol: the power of a song
From: Pete from seven stars link
Date: 25 May 16 - 06:29 PM

I just got a defunct version of you tube , and I,m too technically challenged to sort it, but as I said, I enjoyed the versions I found.   Fair comment that there is no evidence outside of Matthew ..........as yet.

Subject: RE: Origins: Coventry Carol: the power of a song
From: Stower
Date: 27 Jul 16 - 02:03 PM

Pete, I've just tested the link and it works. I wonder if the issue is with your web device rather than the link.