Ding! Dong! merrily on high
Ding! Dong! merrily on high (NOBC 108) This carol has modern words, written by Rev. George R. Woodward in 1922,1 and these were then fitted to a French Renaissance dance tune called ‘Branle de l’Official’ from a book of dance instruction entitled Orchésographie by Thoinot Arbeau.2
This French tune was harmonised by Woodward’s musical collaborator Charles Wood 3 with its endless ‘Glorias’ that trip up so many singers. The carol did not feature in the first Oxford Book of Carols in 1928 but won popularity through the arrangement by David Willcocks in Carols for Choirs vol 2 (OUP: 1970).
George Ratcliffe Woodward (1848-1934) was an Anglican priest, who devoted many years of his life to translating early liturgical music and was much influenced by the High Church hymnist J.M.Neale. Woodward worked on five different carol books and was a founder member of the Plainchant and Medieval Music Society 4 (which still exists today). He was a keen bellringer and the Glorias in this carol are certainly evocative of church bells:
1 The carol was privately printed by Woodward himself in 1922 and then formally published in The Cambridge Carol Book (London: S.P.C.K., 1924). There were 35 Christmas carols including also Past Three o’clock (NOBC 105).
2 Arbeau was the pen name of French cleric Jehan Tabourot (1520-1595); his book was published in 1589. It was translated into English in 1925 (by Cyril Beaumont) and a modern edition was produced by Julia Sutton (New York: Dover publications, 1967). The tabulation of the borrowed branle dance tune and steps is on p173 of the latter book.
3 Charles Wood (1866-1926) was an Irish composer, director of music at Gonville and Caius college, Cambridge, which was Woodward’s old college.
4 The Plainsong and Medieval Music Society website is: https://plainsong.org.uk/