Singing through the Hymnal: Week 51

   Already on our third week of Advent! One more week and then we wrap up our hymnal singing for the year.

   

Angels We Have Heard on High

Verse: Luke 2:14

Text: Traditional French Carol

• No one knows who wrote the words to this carol
• It was first sung in the 19 cent. in France, but the chorus is in Latin (which suggests it was written much earlier)
• Most hymnologists agree that it must have been a monk in the early Roman Catholic church who wrote this
• Translated into English by priest, James Chadwick

Tune: Traditional French Melody, arr. Edward S. Barnes, 1937

• GLORIA is the traditional French melody
• the melody of the stanzas only has a 5 note range and reflects chants of the early church
• Barnes arranged what we sing today

To Ponder: 

• Think about what it must have been like for the shepherds to hear the angels sing

Angels from the Realms of Glory

Text: James Montgomery

Tune: REGENT SQUARE, Henry Smart

• The Tune was first published in the English Presbyterian Church's Psalms and Hymns for Divine Worship (1867)
• This is a wonderful tune with lots of lift and repeated phrases

To Ponder: 

• This is a wonderful text to spend time thinking about if you are unfamiliar with it. 
• The text focuses on each of the key characters in the Christmas story - calling them to come from wherever they are to worship Christ. 

O Little Town of Bethlehem

Verse: Micah 5:2

Text: Phillips Brooks

• some call him the greatest preacher of the 19th century
• He went to Harvard (the Brooks house there is named for him)
• Became an Episcopal priest in 1860
• He preached in support of freeing salves and giving them a vote
• He gave the funeral message for Abraham Lincoln
• This text was written for the children in his Sunday school class
• Below is how he described being inspired to write this text (while riding a horse from Jerusalem to Bethlehem on Christmas Eve)

"I remember standing in the old church in Bethlehem, close to the spot where Jesus was born, when the whole church was ringing in the hour after hour with splendid hymns of praise to God, how again and again it seemed as if I could hear voices I knew well telling each other of the wonderful night of the Savior's birth."

Tune: Lewis Redner

• Brooks asked the organist at his church to write the tune for this hymn
• He was having great difficulty writing it, but on Christmas Eve, the tune came to him
• St. LOUIS perhaps chosen as a play on words for the first name of the tune writer
• ALTERNATE TUNE: I actually prefer Vaughan Williams' arrangement FOREST GREEN

To Ponder:

• Meditate on the last phrase - "Abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel."

You could also sing: The First Noel