A work which had a big impact on me during my teens and one which I have enjoyed ever since is French composer Arbeau’s Orchésographie, published in 1588. It was a dancing treatise and if you know how much I love to dance and enjoy historic dance particularly, you will know how much I enjoy a good dance tune!

I remember being introduced to tunes from this treatise by the late Roderick Swanston at the Royal College of Music Junior Department when he taught me music history, but they were in Peter Warlock’s 20th century version called ‘Capriol Suite’.

The tune used here by Rutter for ‘Christmas Night’ is called Bransle de Poitou and Rutter wrote the words specially to fit the tune. It was not the only tune to be adopted as a carol; the tune of ‘Ding Dong Merrily on High’ also comes from the treatise. The theme for the words is the nativity scene at the stable.

If you try to find Thoinot Arbeau in encyclopaedias it is possible that you will not find much; this is because  he used an anagram of his real name! He was actually a cleric called Jean Tabourot. I guess it wasn’t really done for clerics to be indulging in anything quite so frivolous as  teaching couples to dance Bransles!

This carol has given its name to an album of music by Rutter which critic Rick Anderson described as “…pure, unadulterated, tear-in-the-eye Christmas Eve devotional spirit…”