December 28, 2025 – First Sunday of Christmastide

Psalm 98

Luke 1.46-55

The Story Behind the Songs

First Sunday of Christmastide

 

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

“Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” originally had nothing to do with Christmas.  It was composed in 1840 by Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847), as the second movement of his Gutenberg Cantata. He wrote it for the Leipzig Gutenberg Festival, celebrating the 400th anniversary of the invention of the printing press. It was sung at the unveiling of Leipzig’s new statue of Johannes Gutenberg.

I suspect you can hear the music in your head as you read the tune’s original refrain:

“Gutenberg, du wackrer Mann, du stehst glorreich auf dem Plan!” “Gutenberg, you valiant man, you stand glorious on the square!”

Mendelssohn wanted to publish his Gutenberg tune with English words, but he couldn’t find a text to suit him.  Seven years later, in 1847, when Mendelssohn directed the London premiere of his oratorio Elijah, one of the choirboys was named William Cummings. In the 1850s, after Mendelssohn’s death, Cummings would be the one to attach his Gutenberg tune to a sacred poem entitled “Hymn for Christmas-Day,” from Methodist writer Charles Wesley (1707-1788), the first line of which is, of course, “Hark! The herald angels sing…”

 Joy to the World

The text of this carol is actually an adaptation of Psalm 98, from hymnwriter Isaac Watts’s Psalms of David, Imitated in the Language of the New Testament (1719). Watts called the poem “The Messiah’s Coming and Kingdom,” probably not thinking particularly of Christmas or caroling.

In 1836, American composer and music educator Lowell Mason published the text with a tune entitled Antioch in The Modern Psalmist. Mason attributed the tune to Handel, but nobody’s sure what Handel melody Mason had in mind. It is speculated that the tune was inspired by the choruses “Glory to God in the Highest,” or “Lift Up Your Heads, O Ye Gates,” from Handel’s Messiah, on the tenuous ground that the melodies of both begin with the same four notes as Antioch.

All things considered, Handel might be as confused as anyone about the attribution of this tune.

O Little Town of Bethlehem

Boston minister Phillips Brooks (1835-1893) spent the Christmas of 1866 in Bethlehem. Inspired by his pilgrimage, he wrote the poem “O Little Town of Bethlehem” in 1868 for the Sunday school at Trinity Church in Boston.  He asked his church organist and Sunday school superintendent Lewis H. Redner to compose a tune for his carol. Redner (1831-1908), who was an estate agent during the week, reportedly finished his tune the night before it was sung in church. Known as St. Louis, Redner’s tune is still the most popular setting of “O Little Town of Bethlehem” in America.

In England, however, “O Little Town of Bethlehem” is better known to the tune called Forest Green. Originally a folk song called “The Ploughboy’s Dream,” Ralph Vaughan Williams arranged the tune as a setting of “O Little Town of Bethlehem” for The English Hymnal in 1906.

Away in a Manger

This carol appears to be American in origin, though it first attained popularity because it was mis-attributed to Martin Luther. The text appeared in the March 2, 1882 edition of a journal called The Christian Cynosure, entitled “Luther’s Cradle Song.” It was accompanied by a wholly inaccurate byline: “The following hymn, composed by Martin Luther for his children, is still sung by many of the German mothers to their little ones.”

Martin Luther (1483-1546) did, in fact, compose Christmas hymns, including “From Heaven Above to Earth I Come,” which he published in 1535 as “A children’s song on the Nativity of Christ.” However, this Luther hymn bears no textual or musical resemblance to “Away in a Manger.”

Like “Angels from the Realms of Glory,” “Away in a Manger” is sung to a variety of tunes. In America it’s best known with the tune Mueller, composed by songwriter and organist James R. Murray (1841/2-1905). In England, “Away in a Manger” is more frequently sung to Cradle Song, composed in 1895 by Philadelphia carpenter-turned-church-music director William J. Kirkpatrick (1838-1921).

Christmas Bells

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is best known for his works, “Paul Revere’s Ride” (“Listen, my children, and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere…”) and “The Song of Hiawatha.”  While he was not one of the original transcendentalist writers like Thoreau or Dickinson, he still aligned with their general school of thought.  He taught at Harvard until 1843.  On his retirement, he took to writing.  In the early 1860s, he suffered a double tragedy.  In 1861, his wife Fanny burned to death before his eyes – her lightweight summer dress was ignited by a candle she was using, the flames spread rapidly and Longfellow tried in vain to extinguish them.  Two years later, in November 1863, his son Charley was killed in the Battle of Mine Run during the Civil War.  Longfellow was devastated.

On Christmas Day of that year, he heard the church bells tolling the birth of Christ; their peals carried over the rooftops of Cambridge declaring peace and goodwill, but in his grief Longfellow could not bring himself to feel either. But in their song, he heard the challenge to compose a poem which he titled “Christmas Bells,” and it was published it 1865.  John Baptiste Calkin, an English organist set it to the melody of the tune Waltham, perhaps inspired by the nearby town of that name.  You and I know the song as “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” which usually omit the two stanzas that refer to the Civil War.  Here is the poem in its entirety.

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
    And wild and sweet
    The words repeat 
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
    Had rolled along
    The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
    A voice, a chime,
    A chant sublime 
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
    And with the sound 
    The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
    And made forlorn
    The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
    “For hate is strong,
    And mocks the song 
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
    The Wrong shall fail,
    The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”