This recording by the boys of Coventry Cathedral Choir is on an LP issued in 1971.
The 16th-century Coventry Carol was traditionally performed in Coventry as part of a mystery play, The Pageant of Shearman and the Tailors, which relates the Christmas story from the second chapter of the Gospel of St Matthew and refers to the Massacre of the Innocents. It takes the form of a lullaby sung by the mothers of the doomed children.
And on that cheerful note, let me wish all my readers a merry Christmas and a happy new year.
My late father was a boy chorister at St Giles Parish Church in south-east Birmingham. After the Coventry Blitz in November 1940 he and the choir were co-opted to sing at a mass funeral for the victims, which was held in the ruins of Coventry Cathedral. They sang the Coventry Carol, about the massacre of the innocents. He wasn't a particularly expressive or emotional man, but in later years, whenever the Coventry Carol was played, he would be reduced to tears.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for this comment.
ReplyDelete