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Danielle & Dave's Advent Calendar, 2024

22nd December, 2022

Good King Wenceslas

arranged & played by David Gough

This popular carol is based on the life of Wenceslas I, Duke of Bohemia (aka Václav the Good) from 921 until his death, probably in 935. According to the legend, he became a martyr after being assassinated by his younger brother, Boleslaus the Cruel. Wenceslas’s body lies in St Vitus’s Cathedral, Prague, and he was recently made a patron saint of the Czech Republic.

Good King Wenceslas is a Christmas carol that tells a story of its eponymous hero going on a journey, braving harsh winter weather, to give alms to a poor peasant, on the Feast of Stephen (St. Stephen’s Day – December 26). During the journey, his Page is about to give up the struggle against the cold weather, but is enabled to continue by following the king’s footprints, step for step, through the deep snow.

In 1853, English hymnwriter John Mason Neale wrote the “Wenceslas” lyric, in collaboration with his music editor Thomas Helmore. It first appeared in Carols for Christmas-Tide, published by Novello & Co. the same year.
Neale’s lyric was set to the melody of the 13th-century Spring carol “Tempus adest floridum” (“Eastertime has come”) first published in the 1582 Finnish song collection, Piae Cantiones.

Wenceslas was considered a martyr and a saint immediately after his death in the 10th century, when a cult of Wenceslas rose up in Bohemia and in England. Within a few decades of his death, four biographies of him were in circulation.
These had a powerful influence on the High Middle Ages concept of the “righteous king” – a monarch whose power stems mainly from his great piety, as well as from his princely vigour.

1.
Good King Wenceslas looked outOn the Feast of StephenWhen the snow lay round aboutDeep and crisp and evenBrightly shone the moon that nightThough the frost was cruelWhen a poor man came in sightGathering winter fuel
2.
Hither, page, and stand by me,If thou knowst it, tellingYonder peasant, who is he?Where and what his dwelling?Sire, he lives a good league hence,Underneath the mountainRight against the forest fenceBy Saint Agnes fountain.
3.
Bring me flesh and bring me wineBring me pine logs hitherThou and I shall see him dineWhen we bear them thither.Page and monarch, forth they wentForth they went togetherThrough the rude winds wild lamentAnd the bitter weather
4.
Sire, the night is darker nowAnd the wind blows strongerFails my heart, I know not howI can go no longer.Mark my footsteps, good my pageTread thou in them boldlyThou shall find the winters rageFreeze thy blood less coldly.
5.
In his masters step he trodWhere the snow lay dintedHeat was in the very sodWhich the Saint had printedTherefore, Christian men, be sureWealth or rank possessingYe, who now will bless the poorShall yourselves find blessing.

The arrangement

This arrangement is a small set of variations. It started with the idea of using a looper – a guitar pedal which enables you to play a sequence  which repeats while you play something over it, which you can also ‘loop’ and play something else, building up layers.

That method, however, has its limitations, so I just started recording layers – first drumming on an acoustic guitar, then adding a looped chord sequence etc. 

Then I just came up with different approaches for the variations:

  • a fuller version with more chords and more percussion
  • A minor key version
  • A version played with harmonics, and 
  • A ‘choral’ version

Dave

Instruments:

  • Epiphone AJ200-SCE (as both guitar and drum!)
  • Epiphone ES-155 (Custom Shop – Limited Edition)
  • Fender Squier Stratocaster Standard
  • Gibson ES-137
  • Ibanez ‘Musician’ Bass Guitar
  • Other percussion: Marracas, Tambourine, African drum