Coventry Carol
Digital Sheet Music

Item Number: 22099695
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Piano Solo - Level 3 - Digital Download

SKU: A0.899608

Composed by Traditional English Carol. Arranged by C. Blankenship. Baroque,Christmas,Renaissance. Score. 1 pages. C Blankenship #6537831. Published by C Blankenship (A0.899608).

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. There are alternative, modern settings of the carol by Kenneth Leighton and another by Philip Stopford.


This arrangement is written in a mixture of plainchant and fugal styles, which might have been heard at its time of composition on a fretted/fretless string instrument, but is presented here for an intermediate pianist.

This product was created by a member of ArrangeMe, Hal Leonard’s global self-publishing community of independent composers, arrangers, and songwriters. ArrangeMe allows for the publication of unique arrangements of both popular titles and original compositions from a wide variety of voices and backgrounds.

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