A brief history behind five favourite Christmas carols

WHAT would Christmas be without carols? Although nobody will admit to actually liking Boney M (mainly because they can be heard crooning in almost every shop from around the end of October) you will probably find yourself silently singing along, despite your best intentions. Here is is little bit of history behind some of our favourite Christmas carols.

O Come, All Ye Faithful

For hundreds of years, this popular Christmas carol was attributed to an unnamed cleric from the Middle Ages. Other stories say that Saint Bonaventura wrote it. But when an English scholar found seven signed manuscripts of the song, the true story of English Catholic Priest John Francis Wade emerged.

Wade was a cleric from the mid 1700s whose work included researching and restoring copies of historical church music. He had left England during a time of great conflict between Catholics and the Church of England. Wade made France his home and shared beautiful copies of music written in calligraphy-like script to churches all over that country.

Around 1750, Wade finished his own composition in Latin, a melody called ‘Adeste Fideles’ and a year later published it with completed music and lyrics.

But, in 1841, when a Frederrick Oakley translated Wade’s song from Latin to English, the credit to Wade was left out. Time and again, Wade was forgotten until hundreds of years later when the English scholar Maurice Frost found those original manuscripts.

‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’ is one of the oldest and most popular Christmas songs. It has been translated into 150 languages, made the top ten on the music charts, and been remade countless times. Taken from www.teachingmom.com

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

Charles Wesley, known as the founder of Methodism and writer of thousands of hymns, wrote a new Christmas composition in 1737. It was called ‘Hark! How All the Welkin Rings’ and premiered in his church that year. Soon, the song grew in popularity among the growing Methodist churches and Wesley wanted to have it published. He turned to an old college friend, George Whitefield. George and Charles were many times at odds in how they presented the gospel; and when Wesley saw the unapproved changes to his Christmas song when Whitefield published it, he was furious.

George Whitefield removed the term ‘welkin’, an archaic Middle English word that meant ‘the vault of heaven’ or the uppermost part of the sky. And instead of the heavenly host of Luke 2 simply praising God and giving Him glory, Whitefield had the angels sing their praises. Wesley never sang the new version of his song. But the original melody changed decades later when William Cummings combined the music of two men who would never meet – he put the lyrics of ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’ by Charles Wesley to the melody of a song composed by Felix Mendelssohn which was written as a tribute to Johann Gutenberg, inventor of the printing press and the first printed Bible. Taken from www.teachingmom.com

Silent Night

The words of Silent Night were written by a Priest called Fr. Joseph Mohr in Mariapfarr, Austria, in 1816 and the music was added in 1818, by his school teacher friend Franz Xaver Gruber, for the Christmas service at St. Nicholas church in Oberndorf, Austria.

At Midnight Mass in 1818, Fr. Mohr and Franz Gruber sang each of the six verses with the church choir repeating the last two lines of each verse. Mohr set down the guitar arrangement on paper around 1820 and that is the earliest manuscript that still exists. It is displayed in the Carolino Augusteum Museum in Salzburg. There are a number of manuscripts of various ‘Stille Nacht’ arrangement that were written by Franz Gruber in later years.

The original words of the song were in German (and it was called ‘Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht’) and translated in to English went: Silent night, holy night,

Bethlehem sleeps, yet what light,

Floats around the heavenly pair;

Songs of angels fills the air.

Strains of heavenly peace.

It was translated into English in 1863 by John Freeman Young. The carol was sung during the Christmas Truce in the First World War in December 1914 as it was a song that soldiers on both sides knew. It’s now one of the most, if the the most, recorded songs in the world. Taken from www.whychristmas.com

Joy to the World

Isaac Watts grew up in Southampton, England in the late 1600’s. He was the son of a radical free-thinker–also named Isaac–who was shunned by the Church of England and spent many a night in jail for his nonconformist ideas. Isaac, the son, grew up challenging authority in the same way his father did.

Because he was not a member of the Church of England, Isaac Watts was not allowed to enter Oxford or Cambridge even though he was a brilliant thinker. He studied at the Independent Academy at Stoke, Newington until the age of 20 when he left on his own to go back to live with his father.

While living at home, the younger Watts complained to his father about the dull and uninspired hymns of their church. Watts senior challenged him to come up with something better, and so he did.

While studying Psalm 98, Isaac was inspired to write a song based on the emotional experience of King David. He was touched by the words, ‘Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth; break forth and sing for joy and sing praises’ and soon put his paraphrase into the song which would become ‘Joy to the World’.

No one is sure how it became such a popular Christmas carol because the only lines linking it to the New Testament story of Christ’s birth is ‘the Lord is come’ and ‘let Earth receive her King’. But in the early half of the 1900s, it became a regular on radio during the holidays and ‘Joy to the World’ was soon a classic. Taken from www.teachingmom.com

Away in a Manger

This popular Christmas carol has a most confusing history. For many years, it was attributed to Martin Luther, causing it to

be widely accepted in some circles and rejected by others. Some sources still claim that Luther is the composer however, it is now a common theory that James R. Murray found the untitled music. He printed the song with the title

‘Luther’s Cradle Hymn’ in his popular songbook, Dainty Songs for Little Lads and Lasses and even stated that Martin Luther has written it AND had sung it to his children at bedtime.

What we do know is that the very first version was probably written by an American in the mid 1800s. Although it was popular to give Martin Luther credit and tell tales of German mothers singing the tune to their sleepy babies, the Germans had never heard of this song until it reached Europe after gaining fame in America. We may never know the truth about the beginnings of this sweet Christmas song, but can be glad that even controversy caused it to be kept alive in hearts and

homes around the world. Taken from www.teachingmom.com

The First Noel

This is one of the oldest Christmas folk songs sung today. The author is unknown, but both France and England make claims to its origins. The older title used in Britain was ‘The First Nowell’.

This song was written as long ago as the 13th century, but what can be assumed about the composer is that he (or she) was common folk. Around the time that most researchers believe ‘The First Noel’ was written, there were very few Bibles in circulation and they were a possession of the middle and upper class. This could explain some of the incorrect

Scriptural points of the song and why the language is not as finely tuned, so to speak, as the lyrics of a song by Wesley or other great hymn writers.

For example, the author says that the shepherds follow the star to Bethlehem rather than the magi as told in the Bible. And using a certain term for ‘donkey’ may not have been suitable for a more polished writer, even if it was a common word! The song was probably passed on by peasants and sung in households for the hundreds of years before it was published.

Finally, in 1833, an English lawyer who loved to collect French and English folk songs decided to publish ‘The First Noel’ and his timing was perfect; the Church of England was beginning to allow new songs into their services. Because it was already well-loved among the people, ‘The First Noel’ soon became a worldwide favourite. Taken from www.teachingmom.com