Lyr Add: What Sweeter Music... (Robert Herrick)

Subject: Lyr Add: WHAT SWEETER MUSIC... (Robert Herrick)
From: T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 24 Dec 99 - 09:39 PM

A Christmas Carol sung to the King in the Presence at Whitehall
by Robert Herrick (1591-1674)

Chorus: 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 !
Heart, ear, and eye, and everything
awake! the while the active finger
runs division with the singer.

[Solo:] 1. Dark and dull night, fly hence away
and give the honor to this day
that sees December turned to May.

2. If we may ask the reason, say
the why and wherefore all things here
seem like the spring-time of the year.

3. Why does the chilling winter's morn
smile like a field beset with corn ?
Or smell like to a mead new shorn
thus, on the sudden ?

4. 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.

Chorus We see him come, and know him ours,
who with his sunshine and his showers,
turns all the patient ground to flowers.

[Solo:] 1. The darling of the world is come,
and fit it is we find a room
to welcome him.

2. The nobler part
of all the house here is the heart,

Chorus: 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. ^^ T.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: (by Robert Herrick)
From: Okeimockbird
Date: 25 Dec 99 - 10:33 AM

Oops. that should have been "public" mirth.

Merry Christmas, everyone. T.

fixed and copied - S of DT

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: (by Robert Herrick)
From: T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 27 Dec 99 - 12:34 PM

Susan of DT, thanks for fixing up the lyric. T.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: (by Robert Herrick)
From: T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 24 Dec 01 - 09:12 PM

refresh

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: (by Robert Herrick)
From: masato sakurai
Date: 24 Dec 01 - 09:56 PM

This poem has been set to several tunes by:
(1) Joh Rutter (on these CDs)
(2) German tune (in The [original] Oxford Book of Carols, no. 122; titled "Herrick's Carol")
(3) Richard Rodney Bennett (in Carols for Choirs 3, Oxford, no. 49)
(4) M. Henry Laws (score not seen)

Robert Herrick's Christmas poems site is HERE.
~Masato

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: (by Robert Herrick)
From: T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 25 Dec 01 - 12:52 PM

masato sakurai, it was a choral setting that brought this particular Herric poem to my attention in the first place, though I can't remember which setting it was.

Thanks for those links!

T.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: (by Robert Herrick)
From: masato sakurai
Date: 25 Dec 01 - 02:06 PM

Possibly John Rutter's, which I think is best known. The Bennett composition is performed by Bristol Bach Choir (on Welcome Yule?) and Quink Vocal Ensemble (on Carols Around the World).
~Masato

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: (by Robert Herrick)
From: T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 24 Dec 02 - 09:38 PM

Wassail, everyone!

T,

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: (by Robert Herrick)
From: masato sakurai
Date: 24 Dec 02 - 11:05 PM

John Rutter's "What sweeter music" can be heard HERE.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: (by Robert Herrick)
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 24 Dec 02 - 11:14 PM

Thanks again Masato. I just heard that on the radio (while I finish some last minute Santa stuff) and thought it sounded like "The Water is Wide." I'll investigate it more later. Also, I'm not familiar with John Rutter, but also just heard one of the Wassail songs (arranged?) by him.

The German tune you referred to above as another tune for Herrick's Carol in the Oxford Book of Carols is "The Echo Carol." (Als ich bei meinen Schafen wacht)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: (by Robert Herrick)
From: T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 25 Dec 03 - 04:41 PM

Another year. Wassail again, everyone!--T.

Subject: Lyr Add: COME BRING WITH A NOISE (Christmas carol)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 08:56 PM

Looking for a midi to "Come Bring With a Noise." Only found sheet music for sale so far, and many copies of the lyrics.
Couldn't find lyrics in Mudcat, just a link.

Lyr. Add: COME BRING WITH A NOISE

Come bring with a noise,
My merry, merry boys,
The Christmas log to the firing;
While my good dame she
Bids ye all be free,
And drink to your heart's desiring.

With the last year's brand
Light the new block, and,
For good success in his spending,
On your psalteries play
That sweet luck may
Comee while the log is a *teending.

Drink now the strong beer,
Cut the white loaf here,
The while the meat is shredding;
For the rare mince pie,
And the plums stand by,
To fill the paste that's a kneading.

* burning. A fragment of this song was used by Washington Irving in one of his "Sketches."