The Carols of Christmas: A Celebration of the Surprising Stories Behind Your Favorite Holiday Songs, Hardcover

From Oxford professor and renowned British composer, a joyous account of the history behind our favorite carols.

Everyone loves a carol--in the end, even Ebenezer Scrooge. They have the power to summon up a special kind of mid-winter mood, like the aroma of gingerbread or the twinkle of lights on a tree. It's a kind of magic.

But how did they get that magic? Andrew Gant--choirmaster, church musician, university professor, and writer--tells the story of some twenty carols, each accompanied by lyrics and music, unraveling a captivating, and often surprising, tale of great musicians and thinkers, saints and pagans, shepherd boys and choirboys. Readers get to delve into the history of such favorites as ``Good King Wenceslas,`` ``Away in a Manger,`` and ``O, Tannenbaum,`` discovering along the way how ``Hark, the Herald Angels Sing`` came to replace ``Hark, how all the welkin' ring`` and how Ralph Vaughan Williams applied the tune of an English folk song about a dead ox to a poem by a nineteenth century American pilgrim to make ``O Little Town of Bethlehem.``

A charming book that brims with anecdote, expert knowledge, and Christmas spirit, this is a fittingly joyous account of one of the best-loved musical traditions.