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5. The Ghosts of the West Gallery

Choral conductor and scholar Jeremy Summerly visits Dorchester, where Thomas Hardy captured the caroling tradition. From 2013.

Jeremy Summerly visits Dorchester.

It was here that Thomas Hardy captured the caroling tradition that had matured through the 17th and 18th century, but which faced extinction in the 19th.

The West Gallery tradition of musicians and singers in parish churches was an integral part of community life in Hardy's Wessex as elsewhere.

Jeremy explains the origins of that tradition and the fuguing carols so beloved at the time and why it was that their days were numbered.

Along with folk musician Tim Laycock he gets to see the carol manuscripts from which Hardy's great grandfather played and sang on Christmas night in 1800.

The choral conductor and scholar's series tracing the history of the Christmas Carol in Britain.

It's a journey full of song describing the history of a people who needed expression for seasonal joy in the coldest, hardest time of the year.

Producer: Tom Alban

First broadcast on 麻豆社 Radio 4 in December 2013.

20 days left to listen

15 minutes

Last on

Fri 13 Dec 2024 09:30

Broadcasts

  • Fri 13 Dec 2013 13:45
  • Fri 18 Dec 2015 14:15
  • Sat 19 Dec 2015 02:15
  • Fri 15 Dec 2017 14:15
  • Sat 16 Dec 2017 02:15
  • Fri 13 Dec 2024 09:30