Description: Edited by early music experts Hugh Keyte and Andrew Parrott, this anthology of Christmas carols is the most comprehensive collection ever made, spanning seven centuries of caroling in Britain, continental Europe, and North America. Containing music and text of 201 carols, many in more than one setting, the book is organized in two sections: composed carols, ranging from medieval Gregorian chants to modern compositions, and folk carols, including not only traditional Anglo-American songs but Irish Welsh, German, Czech, Polish, French, Basque, Catalan, Sicilian, and West Indian songs as well. Each carol is set in four-part harmony, with lyrics in both the original language and English. The introduction to the volume offers a general history of carols and caroling and appendices provide scholarly essays on such topics as fifteenth-century pronunciation, English country and North American primitive traditions, and the revival of the English folk carol. The Oxford Book of Carols, published in 1928, is still one of Oxford's best-loved books among scholars, church choristers, and the vast number of people who enjoy singing carols. This volume is not intended to replace this classic but to supplement it. Reflecting significant developments in musicology over the past seventy years, it embodies a radical reappraisal of the repertory and a fresh approach to it. The wealth of information it contains will make it essential for musicologists and other scholars, while the beauty of the appeal of the music itself will enchant general readers and singers alike. The scholarly notes on the history and performance of each song have been reviewed and updated and the text underlay for many of the carols hasbeen improved in this paperback edition.

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