Christmas Carols and Their Stories
Puzzle 32 · Collectors and the Carol Revival · Page 50 in print
George Ratcliffe Woodward
George Ratcliffe Woodward, born at Birkenhead in 1848, was vicar of Great and Little Walsingham in Norfolk from 1882 to 1888 and was described as a great authority on the history of church music.
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The words
Arbeau
Thoinot Arbeau, whose 1589 dance book supplied the tune for Ding Dong Merrily on High.
Interlude: The History Behind the Popular (opens a new tab) · Internet Archive: Orchesographie. Et traicte (opens a new tab)
Birkenhead
The town where Woodward was born in 1848.
Branle
The French chain dance whose tune Woodward set to carol words.
Interlude: The History Behind the Popular (opens a new tab) · Internet Archive: Orchesographie. Et traicte (opens a new tab)
Caius
Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, which Woodward entered in 1867.
Charles Wood
The composer who worked with Woodward on later carol books.
Internet Archive: The Cowley carol book (opens a new tab) · Interlude: The History Behind the Popular (opens a new tab)
Chiswick Press
The press that printed Woodward’s 1910 Piae Cantiones.
Cowley
The Cowley Carol Book, Woodward’s best-known collection.
A Cambridge Alumni Database (opens a new tab) · Internet Archive: The Cowley carol book (opens a new tab) · Internet Archive: The Oxford Book of Carols (opens a new tab)
Harrow
The school Woodward attended before Cambridge.
Highgate
The north London district where Woodward lived in later life.
Lambeth
Lambeth, which awarded Woodward a doctorate in music in 1924.
Mowbray
A. R. Mowbray and Co., publisher of The Cowley Carol Book.
Pimlico
St Barnabas, Pimlico, where Woodward served as curate.
Plainsong
The Plainsong and Medieval Music Society, publisher of his 1910 edition.
Songs of Syon
Woodward’s collection of hymns and spiritual songs (edition of 1910).
A Cambridge Alumni Database (opens a new tab) · Internet Archive: The Cowley carol book (opens a new tab)
Walsingham
The Norfolk parish where Woodward was vicar from 1882 to 1888.
Sources
- The History Behind the Popular Carol “Ding Dong Merrily on High”Interlude (classical music magazine), ‘From Dance Song to Carol: Ding Dong Merrily on High’ by Maureen Buja (2023)
- Orchesographie. Et traicte en forme de dialogue, par lequel tovtes personnes peuvent facilement apprendre & practiquer l’honneste exercice des dances. : Thoinot Arbeau demeurant à Lengres.Thoinot Arbeau, Orchésographie (Langres: Jehan des Preyz, 1589); Internet Archive scan (Library of Congress dance manuals)
- A Cambridge Alumni Database (Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses), University of Cambridgevenn.lib.cam.ac.uk
- The Cowley carol book : for Christmas, Easter, and AscensiontideG. R. Woodward and Charles Wood, The Cowley Carol Book, second series (London: A. R. Mowbray, 1925 printing); Internet Archive scan
- Piae Cantiones (1582), revised and re-edited by G. R. Woodward (Plainsong and Medieval Music Society, 1910); Internet Archive scanInternet Archive
- The Oxford Book of Carols : Percy Dearmer, R. Vaughan Williams, Martin ShawThe Oxford Book of Carols, ed. Dearmer, Vaughan Williams and Shaw (Oxford University Press, 1928); Internet Archive scan (preface and notes)