We were completely unaware of the Hymn for Christmas Day until this recording project was well under way. The hymn comes from a hand-written, leather-bound manuscript book which only recently came into the possession of our recording engineer Dave Eynstone. The book formerly belonged to his ancestor, Thomas Eynstone (18811-1876), agricultural labourer of Cot Hill, Berkshire (this is Cothill – just West of Abingdon – which has actually been in Oxfordshire since 1974). It contains over 175 religious pieces – metrical psalms, anthems, and three pieces entitled ‘Hymn for Christmas Day’: No. 25 is Joseph Stephenson’s well-known ‘Hark, Hark What News’, but we have chosen No. 26, the more rarely encountered ‘Hark! Hear you not a cheerfull noise’. There is a version of this in the New Oxford Book of Carols, taken from A Book of Psalmody, published by Matthew Wilkins of Great Milton in Oxfordshire c.1760. Apart from the fact that the words were set to music twice by the American composer, William Billings, the NOBC editors have very little information on the piece. The Wilkins and Eynstone versions are very similar: the former has four harmony parts while George Eynstone’s has only three, but the parts are all subtly different, and it looks as though this version may have been learned via the oral tradition, rather than simply copied from book to book.

Knock At The Knocker, Ring At The Bell