Author: John Chivers via YouTube
Go to Source
My Christmas music project for 2023, this is my version of The Coventry Carol.
I live near Coventry, and used to live in Coventry for many years, and indeed for a year in my first year as a student in Coventry I lived directly opposite the cathedral.
The carol originates from the Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors: one of the Coventry Mystery Plays, which, in medieval times were a major event in England, drawing people from all over the country and even further afield. Richard III is reputed to have attended the Coventry Mystery Plays in 1485, just a few weeks before he was killed in battle in nearby Bosworth Battlefield.
Unusually for a Christmas carol, it’s not jolly in nature, but references the Massacre of the Innocents, in which, according to the Gospel of Matthew, King Herod ordered all male infants under the age of two in Bethlehem to be killed, hoping to prevent the prophecy of the coming of the King of the Jews from being fulfilled.
The carol takes the form of a lullaby and is supposed to be the mothers of the doomed children singing to them and saying their goodbyes before Herod’s "men of might" arrive to slay the infants.
Not the cheeriest subject, to be sure, but it’s a beautiful piece of music nevertheless,
Recorded in Cubase using a selection of virtual instruments and a 16 track vocal recording, whereby I recorded each vocal part for times to give the effect of a choir singing.
Thanks to Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P (https://www.flickr.com/photos/paullew/39346298431) for the wonderful cover photo – a stained glass window of the Martyrdom of the Holy Innocents, taken in Chartres Cathedral, France.