Corpus Christi Carol

Britten setting#

Benjamin Britten used the text in the fifth variation of A Boy was Born (Choral Variations For Mixed Voices), Opus 3, in 1933. The text was combined with Christina Rossetti’s “In the Bleak Midwinter”. The solo version of the Christi Carol was arranged for and dedicated to John Hahessy (John Elwes). He recorded the song in 1961 with Benjamin Britten himself at the piano. The song was included in a record with a group of other Britten songs taken from a set of children’s songs entitled “Friday Afternoons”, also the title of the disc, which were composed for his brother who was a school teacher. Recordings of the Britten setting (or adaptations of it) include: * Janet Baker recorded Britten’s arrangement for high voice on her 1967 album “A Pageant of English Song: 1597-1961” with pianist Gerald Moore. * Singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley, inspired by Baker’s version, included his interpretation on his debut 1994 album, Grace. About his version Buckley said, “The ‘Carol’ is a fairytale about a falcon who takes the beloved of the singer to an orchard. The singer goes looking for her and arrives at a chamber where his beloved lies next to a bleeding knight and a tomb with Christ’s body in it.” * Jeff Beck performs his (in turn) Buckley-inspired interpretation on his 2010 album, Emotion & Commotion. In the album liner notes, the English guitarist states: “When I heard Jeff Buckley’s album, the simplicity and the beauty of the way he sounded amazed me.” * Ian Read’s English neo-folk band Fire + Ice, on their 1992 album Gilded by the Sun. * New London Children’s Choir’s 2008 album, Pigs Could Fly. * The Chapel choir of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge on their 2009 album, Ave Virgo. * New Zealand soprano Hayley Westenra on her 2009 album Winter Magic. * Libera’s 2011 album, The Christmas Album. * “Of Kings and Angels” by Mediaeval Baebes. * The Choirboys’ 2005 album, The Choirboys. * Voces8’s 2014 album, Eventide.

Other settings#

• As World War I came to an end in 1919, Peter Warlock set the text for soprano and tenor accompanied by a wordless chorus; he rescored it for voices and string quartet in 1927.
• John Gerrish wrote a setting for it in 1957, titled “The Falcon”.
• Ramiro Cortés wrote a setting for soprano and piano in 1956, titled “The Falcon”, published by Edition Peters No. 6062.
• Harrison Birtwistle combined it with “O my deir hert, young Jesus sweit” by James, John and Robert Wedderburn in his “Monody for Corpus Christi”, for soprano, flute, violin and horn, in 1959.
• It was set for unaccompanied choir by Norwegian composer Trond Kverno in 1995.
• Judith Bingham set the words for choir and organ in 2012 for Queen Elizabeth II’s diamond jubilee.
• In 2015 the Chapel choir of Corpus Christi College, Oxford recorded a choral version, with a setting written by the then senior organ scholar Peter Ladd.
• Scottish singer-songwriter Archie Fisher recorded poet Robert Graves’ adaptation (as “passed to him by Robin Hill”), combining elements of this text and “Down in yon forest” and entitled “Looly, Looly”, on his album Will Ye Gang, Love (1976).
• Nicholas Maw set the words for choir and piano in the Cambridge Hymnal (1967) following a commission by Elizabeth Poston. In 2007 it was sung in Season 1, Episode 2 of the drama on Showtime, The Tudors.