Editing Christmas music (section)

==History==
{{See also|Christmas}}

===Early music===
[[File:Pipetaborchristmasminstrel.png|right|upright|thumb|A Christmas minstrel playing pipe and tabor]]
Music associated with Christmas is thought to have its origins in 4th-century [[Ancient Rome|Rome]], in Latin-language [[hymn]]s such as ''[[Veni redemptor gentium]]''.<ref>Miles, Clement, ''Christmas customs and traditions'', Courier Dover Publications, 1976, {{ISBN|0-486-23354-5}}, p. 32</ref> By the 13th century, under the influence of [[Francis of Assisi]], the tradition of popular Christmas songs in regional native languages developed.<ref>Miles, pp. 31–37</ref> Christmas carols in the English language first appear in a 1426 work of [[John Awdlay]], an English chaplain, who lists twenty five "''caroles of Cristemas''", probably sung by groups of [[wassailers]] who would travel from house to house.<ref>Miles, pp. 47–48</ref> In the 16th and 17th century, various Christmas carols still sung to this day, including "[[God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen]]" (earliest extant version dates to the 1650s) and "[[Ríu Ríu Chíu]]" (first published no later than 1556), first emerged.<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Moore |first=Kimberly |date=November 29, 2011 |title=A Brief History of Holiday Music |url=https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/your-musical-self/201111/brief-history-holiday-music-3-part-series |magazine=Psychology Today |access-date=October 22, 2017}}</ref>

Music was an early feature of the [[Christmastide|Christmas season]] and its celebrations. The earliest examples are hymnographic works ([[chant]]s and [[litanies]]) intended for liturgical use in observance of both the Feast of the Nativity and Theophany, many of which are still in use by the Eastern Orthodox Church. The 13th century saw the rise of the [[Christmas carol|carol]] written in the vernacular, under the influence of [[Francis of Assisi]].

In the [[Middle Ages]], the English combined circle dances with singing and called them carols. Later, the word carol came to mean a song in which a religious topic is treated in a style that is familiar or festive. From Italy, it passed to France and Germany, and later to England. Christmas carols in English first appear in a 1426 work of [[John Audelay]], a [[Shropshire]] priest and poet, who lists 25 "caroles of Cristemas", probably sung by groups of [[wassailers]], who went from house to house.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Miles |first=Clement |url=https://archive.org/details/christmascustoms0000mile/page/47 |title=Christmas customs and traditions |publisher=Courier Dover Publications |year=1976 |isbn=978-0-486-23354-3 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/christmascustoms0000mile/page/47 47–48]}}</ref> Music in itself soon became one of the greatest tributes to Christmas, and Christmas music includes some of the noblest compositions of the great musicians. [[Martin Luther]], the father of [[Lutheran Christianity]], encouraged congregational singing during the [[Mass (liturgy)#Lutheranism|Mass]], in addition to spreading the practice of caroling outside the liturgy.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Clancy |first1=Ronald M. |title=Sacred Christmas Music: The Stories Behind the Most Beloved Songs of Devotion |date=2008 |publisher=Sterling Publishing Company|isbn=978-1-4027-5811-9 |page=40 |language=en |quote=Luther sought reforms in music, as he sought change in theology, ethics, ritual, and art. He loved polyphony and wanted music that moved people by fusing faith and song. He encouraged a greater participation by the congregation in singing, and he simplified the music from choir plainsong to easy harmony … Luther published hundreds of hymn texts to be sung to popular melodies and simple chants. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Reformation extended the range of religious choral music beyond the liturgy, and the informal group singing of songs was highly encouraged, leading to a greater familiarity with Christmas hymns.}}</ref>

===Puritan prohibition===
During the [[Commonwealth of England]] government under [[Oliver Cromwell|Cromwell]], the [[Rump Parliament]] prohibited the practice of singing Christmas carols as [[Pagan]] and sinful. Like other customs associated with Christianity of the [[Catholic]] and [[Magisterial Protestant]] traditions, it earned the disapproval of [[Puritans]].<ref name="Ban"/> Famously, Cromwell's interregnum prohibited all celebrations of the Christmas holiday. This attempt to ban the public celebration of Christmas can also be seen in the early history of [[Father Christmas]].

The Puritan [[Westminster Assembly of Divines]] established Sunday as the only holy day in the [[liturgical calendar]] in 1644. The new liturgy produced for the English church recognized this in 1645, and so legally abolished Christmas. Its celebration was declared an offense by Parliament in 1647.<ref name="Hutton">{{Cite book |last=Hutton |first=Ronald |title=The Stations of the Sun |publisher=Oxford |year=1996}}</ref> There is some debate as to the effectiveness of this ban, and whether or not it was enforced in the country.<ref name=Hutton/> During the years that the Puritan ban on Christmas was in place in England, semi-clandestine religious services marking Christ's birth continued to be held, and people sang carols in secret.<ref name="Ban">{{cite news |title=When Christmas carols were banned |url=https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20141219-when-christmas-carols-were-banned |access-date=February 22, 2023 |agency=BBC}}</ref>

Puritans generally disapproved of the celebration of Christmas—a trend that continually resurfaced in Europe and the US through the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries.<ref name="pennsylvania">{{Cite book |last=Shoemaker |first=Alfred L. |title=Christmas in Pennsylvania |year=1999 |location=Mechanicsburg, PA |page=xvii |orig-year=1959}}</ref>

===Royal restoration===
[[File:Kings College Chapeljh.jpg|thumb|[[King's College Chapel, Cambridge]], (left) in the snow where the [[Nine Lessons and Carols]] are broadcast on the [[BBC]] and around the world on Christmas Eve]]
When in May 1660 [[Charles II of England|Charles II]] restored the [[Stuarts]] to the throne, the people of England once again practiced the public singing of Christmas carols as part of the revival of Christmas customs, sanctioned by the king's own celebrations.<ref name="Ban"/><ref name="Hutton" />

The [[Victorian Era]] saw a surge of Christmas carols associated with a renewed admiration of the holiday, including "[[Silent Night]]", "[[O Little Town of Bethlehem]]", and "[[O Holy Night]]". The first Christmas songs associated with [[Saint Nicholas]] or other gift-bringers also came during 19th century, including "[[Up on the Housetop]]" and "[[Jolly Old St. Nicholas]]".<ref name="PsychVictorian">{{Cite magazine |last=Moore |first=Kimberly |date=December 6, 2011 |title=A Brief History of Holiday Music: The 1800s and the Re-Invention of Christmas |url=https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/your-musical-self/201112/brief-history-holiday-music-the-1800s-and-the-re-invention-christmas |magazine=Psychology Today |access-date=October 22, 2017}}</ref> Many older Christmas hymns were also translated or had lyrics added to them during this period, particularly in 1871 when [[John Stainer]] published a widely influential collection entitled "''Christmas Carols New & Old''".<ref name="PsychVictorian" /> [[William Sandys (antiquarian)|William Sandys]]'s ''Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern'' (1833), contained the first appearance in print of many now-classic English carols, and contributed to the mid-Victorian revival of the holiday.<ref>{{cite book |first=Richard Michael |last=Kelly |title=A Christmas Carol |page=10 |publisher=Broadview Press |year=2003 |isbn=1-55111-476-3}}</ref> Singing carols in church was instituted on Christmas Eve 1880 ([[Nine Lessons and Carols]]) in [[Truro Cathedral]], Cornwall, England, which is now seen in churches all over the world.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/cornwall/content/articles/2005/12/16/faith_nine_lessons_feature.shtml |title=Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols |date=December 16, 2005 |publisher=BBC}}</ref>

According to one of the only observational research studies of Christmas caroling, Christmas observance and caroling traditions vary considerably between nations in the 21st century, while the actual sources and meanings of even high-profile songs are commonly misattributed, and the motivations for carol singing can in some settings be as much associated with family tradition and national cultural heritage as with religious beliefs.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Hebert |first1=David |last2=Kallio |first2=Alexis Anja |last3=Odendaal |first3=Albi |year=2012 |title=NotSo ''Silent'' Night: Tradition, Transformation and Cultural Understandings of Christmas Music Events in Helsinki, Finland |journal=Ethnomusicology Forum |volume=21 |issue=3 |pages=402–423 |doi=10.1080/17411912.2012.721525|s2cid=143629912 }}</ref> Christmas festivities, including music, are also celebrated in a more secular fashion by such institutions as the [[Santa Claus Village]], in [[Rovaniemi]], Finland.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://santaclausvillage.info/|title=Santa Claus Village in Rovaniemi in Lapland Finland Arctic Circle|website=Santa Claus Village Rovaniemi Finland}}</ref>

===Alms===
[[File:Nicolae Ionescu - Children carolers in Bucharest, 1929.jpg|thumb|right|Child Christmas carolers in Bucharest, Romania 1929]]
The tradition of singing Christmas carols in return for [[alms]] or charity began in England in the seventeenth century after the [[English Restoration|Restoration]]. Town musicians or 'waits' were licensed to collect money in the streets in the weeks preceding Christmas, the custom spread throughout the population by the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries up to the present day. Also from the seventeenth century, there was the English custom, predominantly involving women, of taking a [[wassail]] bowl to their neighbors to solicit gifts, accompanied by carols. Despite this long history, many Christmas carols date only from the nineteenth century onwards, with the exception of songs such as the "[[Wexford Carol]]", "[[God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen]]", "As I Sat on a Sunny Bank", "[[The Holly and the Ivy]]",<ref name="Oxford">{{Cite book |last1=Simpson |first1=Jacqueline |title=Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore |last2=Roud |first2=Steve |publisher=Oxford |year=2000 |page=64}}</ref> the "[[Coventry Carol]]" and "[[I Saw Three Ships]]". The practice of ordinary Christian church members of various denominations going door to door and singing carols continues in many parts of the world, such as in India; residents give money to the carolers, which churches distribute to the poor.<ref name="Carvalho2016">{{cite web |last1=Carvalho |first1=Nirmala |title=Christians beaten while caroling in western India |url=https://cruxnow.com/global-church/2016/12/christians-beaten-caroling-western-india |publisher=[[Crux (online newspaper)|Crux]] |access-date=January 1, 2023 |language=en |date=December 18, 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Registrar |first1=India Office of the |title=Census of India, 1961 |date=1962 |publisher=[[Government of India]] |page=62 |language=en |quote=These carol singers collect voluntary contributions which are mostly utilised for charitable purposes. 25th, Christians without any exception attend the church, clad in new clothes . ... Alms are distributed to the poor.}}</ref>

===Church feasts===
{{See also|Liturgical year}}
[[File:RLR 3898 (5261831846).jpg|thumb|The large repertoire of Advent and Christmas church music plays an important role in services.]]
The importance of [[Advent]] and the feast of [[Christmastide]] within the church year means there is a large repertoire of music specially composed for performance in church services celebrating the Christmas story. Various composers from the [[Baroque music|Baroque era]] to the 21st century have written [[Christmas cantata]]s and [[motet]]s. Some notable compositions include:
* [[Thomas Tallis]]: ''Mass "Puer natus est nobis"'' (1554)
* [[Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina]]: ''[[O magnum mysterium (Palestrina)|O magnum mysterium]]'' (1569)
* [[Orlande de Lassus]]: ''[[Resonet in laudibus]]'' (1569)
* [[Heinrich Schütz]]: ''[[Weihnachtshistorie]]'' (1664)
* [[Johann Sebastian Bach]]: several [[Bach cantata|cantata]]s for [[Church cantata (Bach)#Christmas|Christmas to Epiphany]] and ''[[Christmas Oratorio]]'' (1734)
* [[Jakub Jan Ryba]]: ''[[Czech Christmas Mass]] "Hey, Master!"'' (1796)
* [[Anton Bruckner]]: ''[[Virga Jesse (Bruckner)|Virga Jesse floruit]]'' (1885)