550 year old Christmas carol - Parit Virgo Filium

Subject: RE: 550 year old Christmas carol - Parit Virgo Filium
From: leeneia
Date: 27 Dec 18 - 04:18 PM

It's more interesting than most current "country" tunes.

Subject: RE: 550 year old Christmas carol - Parit Virgo Filium
From: Jack Campin
Date: 27 Dec 18 - 03:10 PM

Sounds like rather a lot of other mediaeval tunes only not as interesting as most.

Subject: RE: 550 year old Christmas carol - Parit Virgo Filium
From: leeneia
Date: 26 Dec 18 - 03:52 PM

Could be.

Subject: RE: 550 year old Christmas carol - Parit Virgo Filium
From: BobL
Date: 26 Dec 18 - 03:40 AM

PEDANT ALERT
They claim the carol hasn't been performed in over 500 years but how do they know? That may well be the age of the manuscript, or of the book containing it, but what's to say the carol wasn't still being sung after that date, from other written copies? At a guess it would have dropped out of use during the Reformation, but even so, might have been revived during Mary Tudor's reign. Which makes it 450 years rather than 550.

Subject: RE: 550 year old Christmas carol - Parit Virgo Filium
From: Joe Offer
Date: 26 Dec 18 - 03:01 AM

Leeneia's MIDI posted - see link in her post above.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: 550 year old Christmas carol discovered
From: leeneia
Date: 25 Dec 18 - 11:34 AM

Thanks very much, Freddy. That's a lovely performance. I have made a MIDI of the melody, and I'm working on a bass part. I'll send the MIDI of the melody to Joe for posting here, but today is Christmas Day, and he may be busy with family, so the MIDI may not show up right away.

It works okay to accompany the melody with a simple drone in G, although the tune is nice enough without it.

It would be nice to have the words. I can hear the title and the words David (I think) Gabriel and Bethlehem.

---

Click to play (joeweb)

Subject: RE: 550 year old Christmas carol discovered
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 24 Dec 18 - 09:06 PM

there is a recording here, courtesy of Classic FM

https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/about-us/news-events/news/vc-carol/

Subject: RE: 550 year old Christmas carol discovered
From: leeneia
Date: 24 Dec 18 - 04:00 PM

Thanks for the info, Helen. I hope Newcastle Cathedral shares the song with the world once they give it a big debut.

Heads up: the MS in the article is from somewhere else.

Subject: 550 year old Christmas carol discovered
From: Helen
Date: 24 Dec 18 - 01:40 PM

I just read this article:


550 year old Christmas carol

Forgotten Christmas carol to be brought back to life after 550 years by Newcastle Cathedral

"Church-goers and music aficionados are in for a treat this Christmas, as Britain's Newcastle Cathedral Choir will perform a medieval carol for the first time in over 500 years.

"Professor Andrew Wathey, vice-chancellor and chief executive of Newcastle's Northumbria University, found the carol — Parit Virgo filium — in a 15th-century manuscript at Cambridge University Library."

I will be looking out for the video of the performance. It's not very often that a new piece of music turns up and gets performed.

When I saw the name of Newcastle Cathedral I thought for a split second that it was Newcastle Oz, where I live, but no. It was more likely to be Newcastle in the UK.