19th–20th CENTURY CHRISTMAS CAROLS IN THE TRANSYLVANIAN PLAIN

From the middle of the 19th century we can witness the popularity of the songs written by cantors and priests. Musically, these melodies can be placed within the frames of classicism and romanticism, with the frequency of common chord and a general AABA melodic structure. The lines have mostly 10-15 syllables. Especially within the repertoire of the Protestant Churches – also from the second half of the 19th century – there has been a growth in the number of songs imported from abroad, which have been translated to Hungarian. The spread of the songs were favoured first of all by handwritten cantor books, pulp fiction, and later on by the hymnals of different confessions, and media. The Christmas carols broadcasted on television and radio have become more and more popular, thus they could have been included in the local repertoires.