Coventry Carol

Coventry Carol
Massacre of the Innocents, by Cornelis van Haarlem, 1591
Genre	Christmas music
Text	Robert Croo (oldest known)
Language	English

Coventry Carol

Performed by the U.S. Army Band Chorus

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Brass choral arrangement

MIDI

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The "Coventry Carol" is an English Christmas carol dating from the 16th century. The carol was traditionally performed in Coventry in England as part of a mystery play called The Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors. The play depicts the Christmas story from chapter two in the Gospel of Matthew: the carol itself refers to the Massacre of the Innocents, in which Herod ordered all male infants under the age of two in Bethlehem to be killed, and takes the form of a lullaby sung by mothers of the doomed children.

The music contains a well-known example of a Picardy third. The author is unknown; the oldest known text was written down by Robert Croo in 1534, and the oldest known setting of the melody dates from 1591.^[1] There are alternative, modern settings of the carol by Kenneth Leighton, Philip Stopford and Michael McGlynn.