This arrangement of Coventry Carol for brass band paints a beautiful yet mournful musical picture of the biblical fable of the Massacre of the Innocents. Coventry Carol was sung by the mothers to the male infants, whom Herod ordered to be killed in Bethlehem.
This brass band arrangement of Coventry Carol starts out with the cornet and glockenspiel playing the melody as the opening lullaby, before being passed to a larger instrumental force. The arrangement builds to a lush finale, with a countermelody played by the flugelhorn and two tenor horns. Famously, Coventry Carol concludes on a picardy-third, but this arrangement for brass band uses modal interchange to produce a series of 3 descending chords which lend a slightly jazzy colour.
