The wise men don’t reach the Christ Child until the feast of Epiphany, January 6. And there’s still plenty of time to play Christmas music before this season is over. Readers kindly recommended some of their favorite secular songs. Here are some of my favorites among the religious variety.
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
The text is by Charles Wesley, a “Hymn for Christmas Day,” written in 1739. This was later revised by George Whitefield, who changed the first line from Wesley’s “Hark How All the Welkin Rings” to the title line we all know and love. Though Wesley had written an original melody, William Hayman Cummings took a tune from a Felix Mendelssohn cantata, composed in 1840, and paired it with Wesley’s lyrics.
I can’t hear Hark! The Herald without thinking of the end scene from It’s a Wonderful Life and getting a lump in my throat . . .
Stille Nacht
Also known by its English translation “Silent Night,” this delightful carol was first written as a poem by a Catholic priest, Father Joseph Mohr, in the town of Oberndorf in Salzburg. A local music teacher, Franz Gruber, set Mohr’s text to music in 1818. Ordinarily, I’d prefer a choral setting for a carol. But since the original was written for guitar accompaniment (legend has it that the church organ was broken), I feel justified in sharing Bing Crosby’s version.
Adestes Fideles
Or in its English version, “O Come All Ye Faithful,” is a powerful carol. So much so that during World War I, one British soldier recalled its role in the famous Christmas truce. Picture soldiers, tired, hungry, freezing cold, sitting in muddy trenches awaiting death. Per Time magazine, this is what the solider remembered:
First the Germans would sing one of their carols and then we would sing one of ours, until when we started up ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’ the Germans immediately joined in singing the same hymn to the Latin words Adeste Fideles. And I thought, well, this is really a most extraordinary thing — two nations both singing the same carol in the middle of a war.
In the Bleak Midwinter
The text of this beautiful poem was penned by Christina Rossetti and published as “A Christmas Carol” in the January 1872 issue of Scribner’s Monthly. There are two famous musical settings. Gustav Holst’s 1906 setting is the better-known of the two. Its simplicity lends itself to congregational singing. Harold Darke’s 1909 version lends itself better to choral settings and is probably my favorite, though I go back and forth between them.
Holst.
Darke.
Which are your favorite Christmas carols? Let me know: Mkearns@nationalreview.com