Ian Pittaway : Coventry Carol скачать в хорошем качестве

Ian Pittaway : Coventry Carol

In the late medieval period, most major towns had a unique cycle of mystery or miracle plays, headed by craft guilds and usually performed on or around the festival of Corpus Christi, a movable feast on a Thursday between late May and mid June. This song, now often known as Coventry Carol, is named after the city in England where the 16th century Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors depicted the nativity story from the annunciation to the massacre of the innocents, one of only two plays to have survived from the Coventry play cycle. The play which preserves this song is in a manuscript dated 1591 (and not also in the play cycle facsimile dated 14 March 1534, as I mistakenly said in the interview). These are renaissance period documents preserving earlier medieval practices as, with the rise of Henry VIII’s Church of England, mystery and passion plays became associated with the Catholic past and increasingly fell out of favour. For much more detail on the background to this song, see http://earlymusicmuse.com/coventrycarol The interview is from Black Country Community Radio www.blackcountryradio.co.uk, broadcast November 2014, with thanks to Brian Dakin, alias Billy Spakemon. 'Coventry Carol' is on 'Lovers Beggars Soldiers sailors', available from www.ipmusic.org.uk