An Advent Calendar of Carol Books, no. 26. Happy birthday to a carol book which celebrates its 60th anniversary this year! No, not THAT one (though we will come to it in due course), but this one, the University Carol Book, first published in 1961. 1/
The University Carol Book is really two books. The first began in the 1920s as a series of pamphlets edited by Edgar Pettman, another busy carol-monger best remembered for introducing Basque carols like "Gabriel's Message" to the repertory. 2/
The 1961 University Carol Book was partly a "best of" edition of these pamphlets, which by that time numbered 40 and contained 270 carols, and partly material drawn from other sources. It contains 217 carols. 3/
In many ways the UCB is the last of its kind. It's the last major carol book in which the carols are all in simple four-part arrangements. It's the last one which includes carols for seasons other than Christmas. And it's the last one edited by a clergyman - Erik Routley. 4/
Routley (1917-1982) is the final figure in the line of clerical carol enthusiasts which began with John Mason Neale in the mid-19th century. He is unusual though in not being a High Church man, being instead a minister in the Congregational church. 5/
His books deal trenchantly and entertainingly with many aspects of sacred music. That on "The English Carol" (1958) is one of the very few on the subject which is worth reading (though he does get in a terrible muddle over the Victorian anthologies). 6/
The UCB stands apart from the Stainer-Oxford tradition, drawing on other collectors, some of whom I haven't had time to consider - Edgar Pettman, G.R. Woodward, and Richard Terry, organist of Westminster Cathedral, who published several collections in the 1920s and 30s. 7/
It's also one of the few collections to include material from the West Gallery repertoire, though all in bowdlerized arrangements. 8/
This was my Mum's copy, and I remember her saying that she bought it because a musical friend assured her that it was the last word in carol books. Then another book appeared, and the University Carol Book was forgotten. The last window of the Advent Calendar opens tomorrow! /end
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