Excerpt from The Music Story Series: The Story of the Carol
If it is scarcely possible to put before the reader a new and entertaining account of so old a subject, small difficulty is there in gathering together under one cover a widely representative collection, such as never yet has figured in the pages of a single volume. The subject necessarily breaks some ground which more properly belongs to other matters; hymnology and carolry share an identical source. Early sequences sang of Christmas; the well-developed carol of the seventeenth century heralded the anthem. Mysteries, moralities, and crude plays of the type of St. George and the Dragon once played an important part in Christmas festivity. As for the melodies themselves, they everywhere obtained. Masses were formed upon them, early organ pieces employed their themes; they formed the one redeeming feature of the foolish Festum Asinorum; their glad thought cheered the lone hours of country cot and diversified the courses of the jovial feast. They are of every possible kind - oriental, medi?val, rustical - just as the occasion has called them forth.
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