A Tudor Christmas Carol
As I outrode this enderes night.
From the Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors, one of the Coventry Mystery Plays.
[The better known 'Coventry Carol', "lully lulla, thou little tiny child" comes from the same source.] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39AA6kFmpWY&ab_channel=Passamezzo
Christmas Cheer - from The Dancing Master, Henry Playford, 1703
Chestnut - from The English Dancing Master, John Playford, 1651
Comfort and Joy - named after the chorus of the ballad 'On Christmas Day', first printed c1700/1, and better known to us now as the carol 'God rest you merry gentlemen'.
Psalm 100 - A Song of #Thanksgiving.
From Henry Ainsworth's translation of the psalms (1612), one of the music books carried on the #Mayflower by Elder William Brewster in 1620.
Thomas Campion - Now Winter Nights Enlarge: an evocative description of Winter pastimes in #earlymodern England
Eleanor Cramer: soprano
Christopher Goodwin: lute
Alison Kinder: bass viol
Now winter nights enlarge
The number of their hours;
And clouds their storms discharge
Upon the airy towers.
Let now the chimneys blaze
And cups o’erflow with wine,
Let well-turned words amaze
With harmony divine.
Now yellow waxen lights
Shall wait on honey love
While youthful revels, masques, and courtly sights
Sleep’s leaden spells remove.
This time doth well dispense
With lovers’ long discourse;
Much speech hath some defense,
Though beauty no remorse.
All do not all things well;
Some measures comely tread,
Some knotted riddles tell,
Some poems smoothly read.
The summer hath his joys,
And winter his delights;
Though love and all his pleasures are but toys,
They shorten tedious nights.