The Cherry Tree Carol - David Willcocks (arr.), John Rutter, The Cambridge Singers
8. The Cherry Tree Carol
From the album 'Christmas Night'
Arranger David Willcocks
Conductor John Rutter
Choir The Cambridge Singers
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The cherry tree carol
This carol was published, in differing versions, in many nineteenth-century English collections. In some of these Joseph responds to Mary’s request with the words ‘Let him pluck thee a cherry/That brought thee now with child.’ After the tree miraculously bows down, Joseph repents of his unkind aspersion. The setting of this carol dates from 1969 and is arranged by Sir David Willcocks.
LYRICS:
Joseph was an old man,
And an old man was he,
When he married Mary
In the land of Galilee.
And as they were walking
Through an orchard so good,
Where were cherries and berries
As red as any blood.
O then bespoke Mary,
With words both meek and mild.
‘Pluck me one cherry, Joseph,
For that I am with child.’
‘Go to the tree then, Mary,
And it shall bow to thee;
And you shall gather cherries
By one, by two, by three.’
Then bowed down the highest tree
Unto our Lady’s hand;
‘See,’ Mary cried, ‘see, Joseph,
I have cherries at command.’
‘O eat your cherries, Mary,
O eat your cherries now;
O eat your cherries, Mary,
That grow upon the bough.’
Then Mary plucked a cherry,
As red as any blood,
Then Mary went she homewards
All with her heavy load.
Christmas Night
The theme of the album - Christmas Night - is the birth of Christ, reflected in the words and music of twenty-two carols spanning more than six centuries. Some of these carols have long been widely known and loved; others have become so thanks to the annual Christmas Eve Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at King’s College, Cambridge. But all of them focus on the central event of the Christmas story – the birth at Bethlehem – and on the characters in that story: the angels, the shepherds, the wise men, and the mother with her child.
John Rutter, English composer and conductor, is associated with choral music throughout the world. His recordings with the Cambridge Singers (the professional chamber choir he set up in 1983) have reached a wide global audience, many of them featuring his own music in definitive versions. Among John’s best-known choral works are Gloria, Requiem, Magnificat, Mass of the Children, and Visions, together with many church anthems, choral songs and Christmas carols.
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