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The recording called "Christmas Carols from King's" and is available on Spotify from "Digital Gramaphone". We are not sure about it's availability elsewhere.

One of the first things to jump out at us is how much the conventions surrounding hymn playing and singing have changed.

There is no descant on the opening hymn, Once in royal David's city. Willcocks's descant bears a copyright date of 1970 in Carols for Choirs 2, the same year that book was published, so it is certainly possible that he hadn't conceived of it yet.

Even after a rhythmic introduction to the hymns, the organist gives a one-beat "gathering chord" at the start of each stanza of the hymns. This is not a practice that we have heard anywhere else, though we don't often listen to liturgical recordings from English collegiate chapels from the 1960s. We are not sure if it was common to accompany hymns this way, or if this was a convention developed for this broadcast.

It is certainly a bit odd to listen too, especially when the left hand enters with the tuba for that marvelous Willcocks descant to "O come, all ye faithful".

In the hymn "God rest ye merry, gentlemen" the word "wind" is made to rhyme with "mind" in the lines of the third stanza, something which is not done at King's (or anywhere that we know of) today.

The shepherds at those tidings
Rejoiced much in mind,
And left their flocks a-feeding
In tempest, storm and wind,

The organ also plays brief introductions to the carols, something that is not done nowadays.

In terms of the carols, a standout to us was "Born in a manger". The Spotify information does not include composers, but with a bit of sleuthing we hypothesize that this carol was written by Christopher Morris, who you might know as the editor of much music published by Oxford including A Sixteenth-Century Anthem Book.

Morris died in 2015. His obituary from the Telegraph begins

"Christopher Morris, who has died aged 92, was the inspiration behind Carols for Choirs, first published in 1961 and later extended into four volumes, which, in the words of the composer John Rutter, 'changed the whole sound of Christmas for everybody who sings'."

If anyone deserves to have contribution to Anglican Christmas music recognized at contemporary Carol services, Christopher Morris does. "Born in a manger" is lovely, brief, and quite effective.

It seems to us utterly shocking that 1) we don't know the full picture about what music was sung at services like these in Willcocks's time 2) that a piece as good at this one is now almost completely unknown and unrecorded. Why has it not been sung recently?

This brings us to the final phase of listening to this recording, which is placing the music in its liturgical context. Thanks to this recording we know exactly what the carols are (with the exception of composer of "Born in a manger", which we hope to confirm very soon). Since the readings are not included, we are left wondering at the precise placement of the music.

This calls for some more speculation, but it is very possible that the service in 1962 looked like this:

• Processional Hymn: "Once in royal David's city"
• Bidding Prayer
• Invitatory Carol: "This is the truth" - Ralph Vaughan Williams
• First Lesson: God tells sinful Adam that he has lost the life of Paradise and that his seed will bruise the serpent’s head.
• Adam lay ybounden - Boris Ord
• Ding dong! merrily on high - Charles Wood (Note: both of these carols were sung after the First Lesson in 1957)
• Second Lesson: God promises to faithful Abraham that in his seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.
• Sussex Carol - David Willcocks (Note: this carol, though not necessarily this setting, was sung after the Second Lesson in 1957)
• Third Lesson: The prophet foretells the coming of the Saviour.
• Hymn: "God rest ye merry, gentlemen" (Note: this hymn was sung after the Third Lesson at all the services in the 1930s for which we have information)
• Fourth Lesson: either the currently used lection from Isaiah, or Micah 5:2,3,4
• In dulci jubilo - Robert Pearsall (Note: this seems to have been a rather fixed element of the service after the Fourth Lesson, being sung in 1934, 1936, 1937, 1938, and 1957.)
• Fifth Lesson: The angel Gabriel salutes the Blessed Virgin Mary. (Note: between 1938 and 1971 the exact verses of this lesson varied slightly. By 1971 verses 34 and 35 of Luke 1 were included, but they had not been read in earlier years.)
• Gabriel's Message - Edgar Pettman
• The holly and the ivy
• Sixth Lesson: ? (Note: some time between 1938 and 1971 this lesson changed. In 1938 it was Matthew 1:18-23; in 1971, Luke 2:1,3-7)
• Born in a manger - Christopher Morris?
• See amid the winter's snow - John Goss
• Seventh Lesson: The shepherds go to the manger.
• The Shepherd's cradle song - Karl Leuner, arr. Charles Macpherson
• Hymn: "While shepherds watched their flocks by night" (Note: this hymn inaugurated a period of great consistency. Whereas a hymn was not a regular feature after the Seventh Lesson, it seems to have become one through 1986.)
• Eighth Lesson: The wise men are led by the star to Jesus.
• Personent hodie - Gustav Holst, sung by the men alone
• In the bleak midwinter - Harold Darke (Note: these two carols appear again in this order in 1975)
• Ninth Lesson: St John unfolds the great mystery of the Incarnation.
• Hymn: "O come, all ye faithful"
• Collect & Blessing
• Hymn: "Hark! the herald-angels sing"

Labels: Christmas, King's College (Cambridge), Willcocks