In late
1956, Benjamin Britten (1913-76) was asked by June Gordon (1913-2009), Marchioness
of Aberdeen and Temair to arrange ‘The Holly and the Ivy’ for the Haddo House
Choral Society’s annual Carol Concert. The Britten Catalogue (1999) explains that the reason for this request was
because the choir ‘were heartily sick of all arrangements…tried so far.’
June Gordon was a near-contemporary of Britten and had
graduated from the Royal College of Music at the same time. In 1945 she founded
the Haddo House Choral Society.
‘The Holly and the Ivy’ for
unaccompanied chorus (SATB) was completed by Britten during January 1957. The
text is derived from an original carol collected by Cecil Sharp’s published in
his English Folk Carols (1911). Sharp
states that he heard the tune sung by Mrs. Mary A. Clayton, aged 64, at
Chipping Camden in Gloucestershire on 13 January 1909. He had noted five
versions of the carol. These were denoted as A, B, C and D – text and tune and
E - text only. Britten used version ‘A’ for this setting.
The sheet music carries the
dedication ‘For June Gordon and the Haddo House Choral Society, 1957.’
THE HOLLY AND THE IVY
The holly and the ivy
are trees that's both well known;
Of all the trees that
grows in woods, the holly bears the crown.
The rising of the
sun, the running of the deer,
The playing of the
merry harp, sweet singing in the choir.
The holly bears a
blossom as white as any flower,
And Mary bore sweet
Jesus Christ to be our sweet Saviour.
The rising of the
sun…
The holly bears a
colour as green as any tree,
And Mary bore sweet
Jesus Christ to set poor sinners free.
The rising of the
sun…
The holly bears a
berry as red as any blood,
And Mary bore sweet
Jesus Christ to do poor sinners good.
The rising of the
sun…
The holly bears a
prickle as sharp as any thorn,
And Mary bore sweet
Jesus Christ at Christmas day in the morn.
The rising of the
sun…
The holly bears a
bark as bitter as any gall,
And Mary bore sweet
Jesus Christ for to redeem us all.
The rising of the
sun…
English Traditional carol
Britten has created a kind of ‘palindromic’
setting of this carol. The arrangement of each verse is given a different
combination of voices as follows: Verse 1, solo treble accompanied by altos,
Verse 2, tenor solo accompanied by basses, Verse 3, alto (or mezzo soprano)
solo accompanied by tenors, Verse 4, baritone solo accompanied by sopranos and
altos. The process is then reversed. The soloists may be replaced by a
semi-chorus. In each case the accompaniment is simple, often depending in a ‘pedal’
note.
In the first six verses the
refrain ‘The rising of the sun…’ is heard in the same harmonisation. There is considerable
use of parallel thirds here. The final chord is at the unison. Britten subtly
varies this refrain for the final verse providing a descant and concluding with
a six-part (basses and altos divisi) chord contrasting dramatically with the
spare conclusion of the previous six refrains. It includes effective crossing
of parts.
The harmony of this carol is
straightforward: there is not a single accidental in the entire piece. The
harmonic interest is devised by gentle clashes in the part writing creating and
dissolving gentle dissonances. Much use is made of major and minor 7th
and 9th chords.
The carol was published by Boosey
and Hawkes in 1957 and was reissued in 1963 by Novello in their compilation
volume Sing Nowell: 51 carols new and
arranged and edited by Louis Halsey and Basil Ramsey. The present arrangement
also appears in The Cambridge Hymnal
ed. David Holbrook and Elizabeth Poston. (OUP 1967)
The Britten Catalogue (1999)
notes that the first performance of this carol was during a BBC Home Service
Broadcast on 22 December 1957. It had been recorded on 14 December at Haddo
House in Aberdeen by the Haddo House Choral Society, conducted by June Gordon. I was unable to find an exact entry in the
contemporary Radio Times.
It is good to know that the Haddo
House Choral and Operatic Society is still going strong. They have presented a
series of Carol concerts over in the run up to Christmas 2018.
There is a splendid version of
this carol on YouTube sung by
the Choir of King’s College Cambridge, conducted by David Willcocks and
originally issued in 1966 on the LP Christmas
Music from King's.
Finally, my (very tatty) copy of the sheet
music for Britten’s ‘The Holly and the Ivy’ was bought in a now-defunct second
hand bookshop in North Wales for 5 pence. The copy, presumably surplus to
requirements, is stamped up as belonging to the Frodsham and District Choral
Society. It is satisfying to discover that this Cheshire
organisation is still performing happily in 2018.
Brief Biography:
Banks, Paul etc., Benjamin Britten: A Catalogue of Published
Works (The Britten-Pears Library, 1999)
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