NOTE

As I Went in a Mery Mornyng was commissioned by Edward Elwyn Jones, Gund University Organist and Choirmaster, and Carson P. Cooman, Composer-in-Residence, for the 110th Annual Christmas Carol Services at the Memorial Church at Harvard University. It received its premiere on December 9, 2019, by the Harvard University Choir, Edward Jones conducting.

The text of As I Went in a Mery Mornyng comes from a 15th-century carol of unknown authorship, for which the music does not survive. It is a fascinating example of the curious late-medieval fad of timor mortis (“fear of death”) poetry and songwriting. These works, written in vernacular old English, dip into Latin for invoking the fear of death, which as this text shows, was an omnipresent concern in everyday European life and by no means a barrier to carrying about one’s business (or, as in this text, appreciating the merriness of a morning) with blithe acceptance. I can’t help but ponder how much more anxiously we live now, despite the relative prosperity, security and comforts afforded by contemporary society. What is there really to fear in the end, other than the inevitable? And what might life be, in the absence of its shadow?