Ceremony of Carols is one of the English composer Benjamin Britten’s most famous works, written for small choir and solo harp. There’s a beautiful New York Times article from 1986 here that talks a little about Britten and how Ceremony of Carols was written.
Confession time… not only have I never had a gig on Valentine’s Day or New Year’s Eve, but I’ve never done Ceremony of Carols. Well, not the whole thing anyway, and the bits I’ve done have been with different choirs and soloists.
I’m quite prone to a visit from the Fraud Police ((c) Amanda Palmer - i.e. the ones who make you feel like a total imposter), but it gets particularly bad at this time of year.
As an English pedal harpist, this seems quite rare. A couple of weeks ago, my Instagram feed announced the start of Christmas – the tricky sections of Ceremony of Carols, practiced all ways – slow, fast, all manner of dotted rhythms, pedals only, eyes shut and sometimes all of the above.
(Just kidding on that last one, but if you think that sounds tricky, watch this incredible video of violinist Hilary Hahn taking the Ling Ling workout on the brilliant Two Set Violin! Thanks to Rachel Hair for telling me about these guys… they are superb but be warned, you’ll lose hours of your life and you won’t even regret it.)
At first I thought it was because I wasn’t a proper harpist, and then I moved to Scotland where it isn’t really performed very much, and I realised that perhaps Ceremony of Carols just wasn’t meant to happen for me.
This meme started circulating last year and it perfectly captures how many harpists feel about it – glad of the cash (as well as enjoying the music of course)
via BellaVoce Chicago and Jordan Thomas - Twitter was cropping the image, sorry!
As a bonus, the music is incredibly beautiful and thankfully extremely satisfying to play, as it’s quite challenging in places - particularly if you are small as I can tell you it’s a mighty big reach for your right foot to get round to your A pedal in That Yonge Child.
Each year, I get the sheet music out and promise myself I’ll learn the whole lot just so I feel less left out, and just in case all the harpists in England and Scotland are suddenly rendered unable to play.
My list of “things I’d really love to play” gets bigger every year, and particularly so at Christmas.
So this year, I’ll dust off the music, play a couple of pages to myself, say “ah next year maybe” and I’ll send my thoughts and prayers and solidarity to my fellow harpists.
Wolcum Yole indeed!
I’d love to hear what makes you fearful of a visit from the Fraud Police… I can’t be alone surely!
PS - I haven’t been able to embed the video today, but if you’d like to listen to Ceremony of Carols there’s a beautiful version on YouTube here