A LATE-15th-century carol that has remained “silent for hundreds of years” has been set to new music and will be brought to life when it is broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 on Advent Sunday, a musicologist specialising in the medieval period has said.
The carol text, Nolo Mortem Peccatoris (“I do not wish that a sinner should die”), a macaronic carol including both English and Latin, comes from a manuscript, S. 54, in the old library of St John’s College, Cambridge. It has been set by the Master of the King’s Music, Errollyn Wallen, and will be sung by the college choir, directed by Christopher Gray, during the college’s Advent carol service.
Mr Gray had asked the musicologist, a Fellow of St John’s, Dr Catherine A. Bradley, for recommendations of an “old” text for the 2025 Advent commission. Dr Bradley consulted another Fellow, Richard Beadle, Emeritus Professor of Medieval English Literature and Palaeography.
Together, they examined 16 texts of the manuscript — first transcribed in an article by the medievalist and ghost-story writer M. R. James in 1915.
Dr Bradley said that the carol texts were preserved in a small paper booklet of 16 leaves. “The booklet is very modest in appearance, and is therefore a remarkable and rare survival from the period. It was written down by two different scribes and stitched into a protective piece of parchment.”
Isabelle FreemanMS S. 54
The texts are without musical notation. “We lack any clues to how they might once have sounded,” Dr Bradley said.
Speaking about the new work, Ms Wallen said: “I worked on the late-medieval text of Nolo mortem peccatoris with a special thrill at the fact that these words had not been sung for centuries, and their original melody remains unknown. This Advent carol moves from the dark to the light — from the terrifying prospect of death to the ‘joy and mirth’ of a new beginning.”
Mr Gray thanked the Librarian, Tanya Kirk, for allowing the choir to see MS S. 54. “This has greatly enriched the experience as we prepare to première the new musical setting, which captures its spirit through a modern lens,” he said.
Other texts with the same Latin refrain are held by Cambridge University Library and the British Library.
Nolo Mortem Peccatoris will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 at 3 p.m. on 30 November.