Hark the Herald Angels Sing
Little Drummer Boy
O Little Town of Bethlehem
History is Knowledge.
According to Wikipedia, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” is a Christmas carol that first appeared in 1739 in the collection Hymns and Sacred Poems, having been written by Charles Wesley. A somber man, Wesley had requested and received slow and solemn music for his lyrics, not the joyful tune expected today. The popular version is the result of alterations by various hands, notably by Wesley’s co-worker George Whitefield who changed the opening couplet to the familiar one, and by Felix Mendelssohn. A hundred years after the publication of Hymns and Sacred Poems, in 1840, Mendelssohn composed a cantata to commemorate Johann Gutenberg‘s invention of the printing press, and it is music from this cantata, adapted by the English musician William H. Cummings to fit the lyrics of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”, that propels the carol known today
According to Wikipedia, “Deck the Halls” or “Deck the Hall” (which is the original title) is a traditional Christmas, yuletide, and New Years’ carol. The melody is Welsh dating back to the sixteenth century, and belongs to a winter carol, “Nos Galan”.
The English lyrics first appeared (still called “Nos Gallan”) in volume 2 ofWelsh Melodies, a set of four volumes authored by John Thomas with Welsh words by John Jones (Talhaiarn) and English words by the Scottish musicianThomas Oliphant although the repeated “fa la la” goes back to the original Welsh “Nos Galan” and may originate from medieval ballads. The song is inAABA form. The series Welsh Melodies appears in four volumes, the first two in 1862, the third in 1870 and the final volume in 1874.
According to Wikipedia “The Little Drummer Boy” (originally known as “Carol of the Drum”) is a popular Christmas song written by the American classical music composer and teacher Katherine Kennicott Davis in 1941. It was recorded in 1955 by the Trapp Family Singers and further popularized by a 1958 recording by the Harry Simeone Chorale. This version was re-released successfully for several years and the song has been recorded many times since.
In the lyrics the singer relates how, as a poor young boy, he was summoned by the Magi to the nativity where, without a gift for the infant Jesus, he played hisdrum with the Virgin Mary‘s approval, remembering “I played my best for Him” and “He smiled at me”.
The song was originally titled “Carol of the Drum” and was published by Davis as based upon a traditional Czech carol. Davis’s interest was in producing material for amateur and girls’ choirs: her manuscript is set as a chorale, the tune in the soprano with alto harmony, tenor and bass parts producing the “drum rhythm” and a keyboard accompaniment “for rehearsal only”. It is headed “Czech Carol freely transcribed by K.K.D”, these initials then deleted and replaced with “C.R.W. Robinson”, a name under which Davis sometimes published.
According to Wikipedia God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen, also known as God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen, and God Rest You Merry People All, is an English traditional Christmas carol. The melody is in the minor mode. It was published by William B. Sandys in 1833, although the author is unknown.
Like so many early Christmas songs, the carol was written as a direct reaction to the church music of the 15th century. However, in the earliest known publication of the carol, on a c. 1760 broadsheet, it is described as a “new Christmas carol”, suggesting its origin is actually in the mid-18th century. It appeared again among “new carols for Christmas” in another 18th century source, a chapbook believed to be printed between 1780 and 1800.
It is referred to in Charles Dickens‘ A Christmas Carol, 1843: “…at the first sound of ‘God bless you, merry gentlemen! May nothing you dismay!’, Scroogeseized the ruler with such energy of action that the singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to the fog and even more congenial frost.”
This carol also is featured in the second movement of the Carol Symphony byVictor Hely-Hutchinson.
In 2010, the British recording artist Annie Lennox recorded a contemporary version of the song on her Christmas album A Christmas Cornucopia. A very different contemporary version of the song was published by the Canadian rock group The Barenaked Ladies on their 2004 Christmas album Barenaked for the Holidays. The song was also covered by Bright Eyes on A Christmas Album in 2002 and by the synthpop duo Erasure on their dance-oriented 1988 Christmas EP Crackers International.
According to Wikipedia, “Ma’oz Tzur” (Hebrew: מעוז צור Māʕōz Sˤūr) is a Jewishliturgical poem or piyyut. It is written in Hebrew, and is sung on the holiday ofHanukkah, after lighting the festival lights. The name is a reference to theHasmonean stronghold of Beth-zur. This Hebrew song is thought to have been written sometime in the 13th century. It was originally sung only in the home, but has been used in the synagogue since the nineteenth century or earlier. Of its six stanzas sometimes only the first stanza is sung (or the first and fifth).
The hymn is named for its Hebrew incipit, which means “Stronghold of Rock” and is a name or epithet for God.
“Ma’oz Tzur” is thought to have been written in the 13th century, during theCrusades.[1] The first letters of the first five stanzas form an acrostic of the composer’s name, Mordechai (the five Hebrew letters מרדכי). He may have been the Mordecai ben Isaac ha-Levi who wrote the Sabbath table-hymn “Mah Yafit“,[2] or even the scholar referred to in the Tosafoth to Talmud (Bavli) Niddah36a. Or, to judge from the appeal in the closing verse, he may have been the Mordecai whose father-in-law was martyred at Mayence (now Mainz, Germany) in 1096.
The hymn retells Jewish history in poetic form and celebrates deliverance from four ancient enemies, Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, Haman and Antiochus. Like much medieval Jewish liturgical poetry, it is full of allusions to Biblical literature and rabbinic interpretation. Thus, “malchut eglah” denotes Egypt(Jeremiah 46:2); “noges” is Nebuchadnezzar; “y’mini” is Mordechai (Esther 2:5); “y’vanim”" is Antiochus; “shoshanim” is the Jewish people (Shir HaShirim 2:2); “b’nei vinah” are the rabbinic sages; and “shir” refers to the Hallel psalms.
According to Wikipedia, “Angels We Have Heard on High” is a Christmas carol in the public domain. The song commemorates the story of the birth of Jesus Christ found in the Gospel of Luke, in which shepherds outside Bethlehemencounter a multitude of angels singing and praising the newborn child. The words of the song are based on a traditional French carol known as Les Anges dans nos campagnes (literally, “Angels in our countryside”) composed by an unknown author in Languedoc, France. That song has received many adjustments or alignments including its most common English version that was translated in 1862 by James Chadwick, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle, northeast England. The carol quickly became popular in the West Country, where it was described as ‘Cornish’ by R.R. Chope, and featured in Pickard-Cambridge‘s Collection of Dorset Carols.[
There is also a Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig) translation of the carol which is known as Ainglean chuala sinn gu h-ard (literally, “Angels We Have Heard on High”). This was translated into Gaelic by Iain MacMilan from James Chadwick’s English translation.
Shalom and Amen
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