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A contribution from David Oates.

Sound, sound your instruments of joy! ©

If you are a visitor to the Cornish heartland, particularly in the old mining districts or fishing ports, around Christmas, you will hear sounds that will appear strange, even alien – it is music that seems to have no relevance or link to anything you associate with the festive season. Indeed, there are many newcomers who have gone with enthusiasm to carol Services in their new locality only to emerge perplexed at what they have heard. They have heard music, however, that the Cornish feel represents the very essence of their being, something that sets them apart and emphasises their celtic roots. For here, and in Cornish communities around the world, ancient songs are still sung, apparently far removed from Christmas music throughout the rest of Britain. This music was far from being exclusive to the mining communities but it was they who took it to the fourcorners of the earth as they followed the discovery of mineral wealth. Outside Cornwall, the most vibrant exponents are the famous Grass Valley Choir in the USA where the week before Christmas is devoted to a festival more Cornish than anything still found here. The music is still predominant in parts of mid and west Cornwall, where, for example, nothing is more guaranteed to bring a tear to the eye of a man or woman from Newlyn than the strains of “Lo, the eastern sages rise” – better known to some as “The Star of Bethlehem”. This particular carol is sung far beyond the confines of church and chapel and rings through many a pub in the far west at Christmas time. People in the mining heartlands are equally stirred by Thomas Merrit’s “Hark the glad sound” and is possibly in that part of the county that these ancient songs survive in their purest form. In the former mining village of Troon, near Camborne, for example, a remarkable continuity exists. Records show that in the 1890’s a tradition existed in that village of a group of men – probably drawn, in the main, from the strong Methodist tradition that was found in every mining community – forming an ad hoc choir and singing “Cornish”carols, unaccompanied, around the streets of the village in the period leading up to Christmas, with the highlight being Christmas day. These carols were also sung by them, too, as they went below ground to burrow in the darkness of the many local mines – the great Wheal Grenville and the mighty Dolcoath, where the levels would ring with joy at Christmas time. That tradition has continued above ground – with possible breaks in war time – until the present day, with the great-great grandsons of those singers from the nineteenth century forming the backbone of the choir. The Christmas season of 2001 will mean that this music making in Troon has spanned three centuries, and, possibly, longer than that. For many years now, that choir has not only sung in the streets of the village but is eagerly awaited in various residential homes and institutions over a wider area.

The choir’s repertoire is essentially the same as it was in 1890 and the music consists of a tenor lead, singing the melody, a counter, or second, tenor, a bass harmony and an alto or treble part above them. Musically, many of the carols are similar in construction and are seemingly drawn from a well-known core of local composers with the most celebrated being Thomas Merrit from Illogan whose carols are often accompanied in church but are at their best heard unaccompanied at Troon. Born in 1865, becoming a miner at the Carn Brea Mine and then a tin streamer at the Tolvaddon Tin Streams, he studied music in his spare time and eventually gave up the labouring life to teach and composed over a hundred pieces, including his famous carols, of which one, his version of “Hark the glad sound" is synonymous with a Cornish Christmas. His carols are often heard in church and in recordings with organ accompaniment but are at their best sung in the open air by male voices.

For some fifty years now, the singing at Troon has been organised by the local branch of Toc H, an organisation once well known in every Cornish town and village, and which was spawned in the horror of life on the Western Front in the infamous Ypres Salient, providing a sanctuary behind the lines for battle shocked soldiers. After that great conflict the movement transferred it efforts and its principles to the peacetime community, looking after ex-servicemen and civilians alike. Here is another remarkable continuity in this small village where an organisation with its origins in a small Belgian town, a whole lifetime away, fosters and supports traditional music and, from collections made, provides charitable help for those in need in the community today. The choir draws support from existing choirs such as the Holman-Climax and Fourlanes Male Voice Choirs but also includes local men who follow their ancestors and sing at Christmas for the pure joy of the experience – a particular favourite of many is the popular “Sound, sound, your instruments of joy” and after a particularly melodious offering the expression “like a horgan” is often heard suggesting that the sweetness of the mens’ singing has the attributes of a fine instrument! There is a tradition of local men leading the choir, too, and the current conductor (or Musical Director as they are now known) is Andrew Thomas, a man whose links with Troon go back many years and whose father and grandfather sang before him and whose cousin Roy Thomas was conductor before him – known in the Cornish tradition as “Big Roy” to distinguish him from another family member and singer of the same name who was always known as “Small Roy”! The melodies and words of the carols sung, speak of times far removed from our modern days and to hear “Sound, sound your instruments of joy” carried on the cold night air forges a link with those who sang the same words in centuries past. On Christmas morning that sense of present linking with the past is tangible as a choir, perhaps only 10 strong to begin with, gathers strength as it moves from street to street and draws people from their homes whatever the weather. There are traditional stopping points, too, that have evolved over the years to avoid the prevailing wind that comes straight of the Atlantic at the end of the year. Insular, almost parochial, behaviour, perhaps, but having the power to unlock a past largely forgotten for the rest of the year. To be in Troon Square at 10 a.m. on Christmas morning is a timeless experience, the routine is the same, the music is the same – even the names are the same – separated only by the gulf of time.

Carols in this style were still being written well into the twentieth century in mid and west Cornwall – or, rather, new tunes to traditional words - but it is from the nineteenth century that most are popularly supposed to have come, when they were staple Christmas diet throughout much of the county. However, the language of many – though often copied by the Victorians – echoes a much earlier period. Following the trail laid by this language, we uncover possibilities that may upset entrenched beliefs held by many Cornishmen that this tradition represents a link with their distant celtic past, despite the fact that they are hanging on strongly in this part of the world. Many of the tunes may be of local origins but even they echo another style and the words themselves have anything but a specifically celtic origin.

We know very little of church music in Britain in early times though we suspect that certainly up to the Tudor period there was little in which a congregation could join. There must have been a strong tradition of monastic music, especially at the great college of Glasney at Penryn but most of that came to an abrupt end with Henry VII’s savage and greedy onslaught on them. Later on, any music that had survived would have been suppressed and destroyed by the strongly Puritan influence of Cromwell’s Commonwealth. Indeed, it was probably not just church music but much of the rich celtic folk music still widely played in Ireland and Brittany, that was destroyed here in Cornwall.

(It still comes as a surprise to Breton visitors who ask about traditional Cornish music and are presented with brass bands and male voice choirs – typical of Cornwall, certainly, but also of many other industrial areas outside the celtic arc.)

After that period of drabness and oppression, the Restoration period of Charles II saw an outburst of popular, secular music that found expression, too, in places of worship. There were instruments such as organs in some of the wealthier places, of course, and many other places would have had a number of wind instruments and fiddles but in many of the poorest areas the human voice led the worship. Those voices were predominantly male and churches often built a gallery at the west end of the church to accommodate these singers. In time the type of music they sang became known as “West Gallery Music” and there is a thriving Association today devoted to ensuring its survival. A particularly meticulous piece of research has been done by Mr Harry Woodhouse on its place in Cornwall and he records a number of amusing references to this music. One account tells of the churchwardens in one part of Cornwall being persuaded to part with money to pay for “strings for the bassoon” – presumably a transparent attempt to obtain liquid refreshment for the singers!

Cornwall was, and still is, a bastion of the non-conformist faith and it seems that much of this West gallery Music was inspired ands kept alive by non-conformists. Indeed, in Troon during the nineteenth century thanks are recorded to a Mr Richard Oates for his contribution in leading choral worship before the installation of an instrument in the Methodist Church in the latter part of that century. Whether this involved wind instruments or just unaccompanied voices we do not know but there was a strong brass tradition in the area and his son, Martin, played the cornet for Camborne Town band, so it is possible instruments played a part. The established, Anglican, Church would probably have acquired gradually acquired organs or harmoniums at an earlier date, however, and there was the decay and corruption in that established church that led the Wesleys, and others, to initiate breakaway groups – of which the Methodist Church was by far the most dominant – and ordinary working men, leaving the established church in droves, simply took the west gallery music with them. Many of them are known to have had “singing masters” – presumably the Musical Directors of today – perhaps similar to the man recorded at Troon. It did decline, however, as the after effects of the industrial revolution led to a kind of conformity of worship and congregations demanded an active part in choral worship from which evolved the hymns we know today – without the parts and complexities of the west gallery music. It is possible, too, that the determination of the Victorians, both in church and government, to control everything as centrally as possible, hastened its demise.

But survive it did – in small pockets across Britain, but in strength here in Cornwall, for it seems that many of these carols be claim as our exclusive property are in fact, variations of that west gallery music, confirmed in the chance purchase some time ago, of a book of “Traditional Dorset Carols”, part of that west gallery tradition, that contained some of those best loved by the Cornish. That great favourite of west Cornwall, “Sound, sound your instruments of joy” stands out amongst them, albeit to a different tune, as do several others thought by many to be exclusively Cornish. Many of the carols are variations on popular biblical readings and one of the most obvious paraphrases of a story from the scriptures is “While shepherds watched their flocks by night”. It has a whole host of tunes in Cornwall and has been recorded as being sung nationwide to over 150 different tunes. The Cornish favourite is “Lyngham” – heard once with a jolt of surprise floating across the Breton countryside on a fine August day. It was part of the music used for one of their “pardons” or Saints’ days – the celtic forerunner of our “Teatreats” perhaps?

So, all you Cornishfolk who thought these carols were part of that celtic inheritance we all guard so jealously – some of the tunes may be but the words are undoubtedly part of a post-Restoration English tradition and may be found throughout the length and breadth of Britain, if you dig deeply enough. Celtic, or not, they are glorious links with our collective past and will hopefully still be sung by generations yet to come!

Troon Tales 1 - Rosemary Pooley Chaffe - 'Gran's Story'

Troon Tales 2 - David Scantlebury- 'Three Beats on Hark'

Troon Tales 3 - Trevor Andrews - 'Charlie Pascoe'

Troon Tales 5 - David Oates - 'Tryphena'

Cornish interest contributions - Trevor Andrews -'Abednego Uren'