CAROL-SINGERS, OLD AND NEW

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21356, 26 December 1934, Page 8

CAROL-SINGERS, OLD AND NEW

♦ THE PASSING OF A TRADITION MODERN "WAITS" IN MOTORLORRIES In these degenerate days the singing of Christmas carols has become, with very few exceptions, a set performance by a churcli clioir, at what is called a. "carol service." But otherwise, the Christmas carol has been brought down from its original peculiar status to that of a seasonal hymn. In Christchurch churches carol services are held on Christmas Day more, it would seem, on account of the ancient associations of the carols than because of their proper intention. The exceptions referred to are doubtful. It may be tliat to transport a churcli choir through tlie streets in a motor-lorry constitutes an equivalent to tlie old house to liouse wanderings of the waits; but it seems rather that the modern attempt to revive the spirit of the old carol-singers fails, because it has in it too much of premeditation. The proper singing of carols is impossible witliout something of the intense and sombre fervour, with a certain simplicity of belief, which characterised the religion of mediaeval England. Several of the carols still sung on Christmas Day are of ancient origin. "The Seven Joys of Mary," "God Rest You, Merry Gentlemen," and "I Saw Three Ships," are of this number. These were, it is probable, sung by snow-dusted carollers in the streets of London long before ever a brass band disturbed tlie Christmas morning silence with the same strains. "O Come All Ye Faithful," is similarly of an honourable age. tliougli it is perhaps best sung in the Latin version, "Adeste Fideles," since the Latin lias in it an air of the Church of the Middle Ages, when tlie mysteries of an as yet unbroken Church were sung througliout Christendom in a universal religious language.

Singers in the Snow

Stories have been told of the old English carol-singers, and drawings still appear in the Christmas numbers of periodicals from time to time, showing the waits standing, red-nosed and vociferous, outside the gates of snow-mantled houses. The waits are either figures of fun or serious sketches, as the fancy of the artist may suggest. But the fact remains that the waits cannot be said to exist to-day, even in the persons of their modern prototypes in motor-lorries. For the latter are the conscious upholders of a tradition, and as such cannot be said to be a part of the tradition itself. The English waits went out to sing because to them it was most important that on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day men should have brought to remembrance the error of their ways and the "glad tidings of great joy" proclaimed on the eve of the birth of Christ. It is no dishonour to the modern carol-singers to suggest that they can never quite recapture the spirit of the mediaeval Church, and that the waits of old England are a part of history which cannot repeat itself.

Fervour of Old-Time Carols There was a sombre note in some of the old carols. One of them, which has not survived among the churches to-day, is named, "Remember O thou Man." The music is in a minor key, and the matter of the carol is calculated to point out the sinfulness of man, the shortness of life, and the consequent necessity for immediate repentance. That is just one example of the deep fervour of the carols of old time. Certainly many of them are still sung in churches and on the streets; but it is noticeable that those have been preserved which are best suited to the modern view of Christmas as a day of festivity as much secular as religious. Possibly it is as well that the romantic attitude towards carols at least ensures their reverent use as an essential part of the Christian observance of Christmas. And even a choir on a motor-lorry may take on some of the glamour of the longdeparted waits.