Andrew Grant

Everyone loves a carol – in the end, even Scrooge. They have the power to summon up a special kind of midwinter mood, like the aroma of mince pies and mulled wine and the twinkle of lights on a tree. It's a kind of magic.

But how did they get that magic? In this musically illustrated talk, Andrew Gant tells that story, unravelling a captivating – and often surprising – tale of great musicians and thinkers, saints and pagans, shepherd boys, choirboys, monks and drunks. He delves into the history of such favourites as Good King Wenceslas, Away in a Manger and The Twelve Days of Christmas, discovering along the way how Hark, the Herald angels sing came to replace Hark, how all the welkin ring and how Ralph Vaughan Williams bolted 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.