The Sixth Day of Christmas

On the sixth day of Christmas, we share Lani Smith’s arrangement of the traditional English carol “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen,” performed by flautist Vivian Boudreaux Mikasa and organist Eric Tuan.

The words to the English carol God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen are thought to date from the 16th century, when they appear for the first time in manuscripts from Oxford and Cornwall. The sprightly minor-mode melody we are most familiar with first became associated with the text in the mid-18th century, when it was recorded by the English composer and organist James Nare as “The old Christmas carol.” Yet the melody, like the text, enjoys an older provenance as well; according to scholars Hugh Keyte and Andrew Parrott, it descends from a 16th-century English dance tune entitled “Chestnut or Jack Doves Figary.”