Today is A Christmas Carol Day. Here are 10 things you might not know about Hark the Herald Angels Sing.
The words to Hark the Herald Angels Sing were written by Charles Wesley, an English Methodist leader and hymn writer. Wesley wrote over 6,000 hymns, more than any other male writer (a woman called Fanny Crosby wrote 8,000).
He was inspired to write it when he heard church bells ringing on his way to a Christmas Day service.
It first appeared in print in 1739 as part of his brother John’s collection, Hymns and Sacred Poems.
These words, however, were different from the ones we sing today. Wesley actually wrote it as “Hark, How All the Welkin Rings, Glory to the King of kings”. “Welkin” is an old English word for “the expanse of the heavens.” In 1753 a student of Wesley’s, George Whitfield, altered the words to read “Hark the Herald Angels Sing, glory to the newborn king.”
The Wesley brothers were not impressed. While they were happy for others to reprint their hymns, they wanted them reproduced exactly as written and wished “they would not attempt to mend them; for they really are not able.” At the very least, the printer should “add the true reading in the margin, or at the bottom of the page” so that “we may no longer be accountable either for the nonsense or for the doggerel of other men.”
Charles Wesley originally intended this hymn to be sung to the same tune as his Easter hymn Christ the Lord Is Risen Today, because to him, Christ’s birth and resurrection were connected, and he wanted to make that point.
The tune with which we are familiar was written by Felix Mendelssohn in 1840. He didn’t intend it to be used for sacred purposes at all. He wrote the tune to commemorate the four hundredth anniversary of Gutengberg’s printing press and it was first sung, with words on that subject, by two hundred men, accompanied by two brass bands in Leipzig town square, as a new statue of Gutenberg was unveiled. Mendelssohn could tell it would be a popular tune and was perfectly okay with people using different words. “If the right words are hit at,” he said, “I am sure that piece will be liked very much by the singers and the hearers.” Except he drew the line at the church using it for a sacred song. “It will never do to sacred words,” he said. “There must be a national and merry subject found out, something to which the soldierlike and buxom motion of the piece has some relation.”
The hymn is used every year for The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at Kings College, Cambridge, and also, with a lesser known arrangement, as the recessional hymn of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. In Dublin they use the tune See, the Conqu'ring hero comes from Handel's Judas Maccabaeus, normally associated with the hymn Thine Be the Glory.
This carol is the climax to A Charlie Brown Christmas, first broadcast in 1965.
It has been covered by many artists. At least 150 versions of it are available for download on iTunes.
A Very Variant Christmas
Last year, Jade and Gloria were embroiled in a bitter conflict to win back their throne and their ancestral home. This year, Queen Jade and Princess Gloria want to host the biggest and best Christmas party ever in their palace. They invite all their friends to come and bring guests. Not even the birth of Jade's heir just before Christmas will stop them.
The guest list includes most of Britain's complement of super-powered crime-fighters, their families and friends. What could possibly go wrong?
Gatecrashers, unexpected arrivals, exploding Christmas crackers and a kidnapping, for starters.
Far away in space, the Constellations, a cosmic peacekeeping force, have suffered a tragic loss. They need to recruit a new member to replace their dead colleague. The two top candidates are both at Jade and Gloria's party. The arrival of the recruitment delegation on Christmas Eve is a surprise for everyone; but their visit means one guest now faces a life-changing decision.
Meanwhile, an alliance of the enemies of various guests at the party has infiltrated the palace; they hide in the dungeon, plotting how best to get rid of the crime-fighters and the royal family once and for all. Problem is, they all have their own agendas and differences of opinion on how to achieve their aims.
Not to mention that this year, the ghosts who walk the corridors of the palace on Christmas Eve will be as surprised by the living as the living are by them.
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