Sing Choirs of Angels: Traditional Carols and Christmas Music

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Kalevi Toiviainen. G. O. Schöneman ja hänen seurakuntansa. Teoksessa Seurakunta kasvavassa Jyväskylässä. P. 9–27, 21. Oy Keskisuomalainen, Jyväskylä, Finland, 1975. : Hear the angels singing, 'Christ is born'. A Christmas carol in a Calypso style. This song probably comes from Trinidad, but it is often also sung in Jamaica. It was made popular when it was included in a piano songbook of Christmas carols by Edric Connor in 1945. The chorus is in a ‘call and response’ format.

Have you heard the sound of the angel voices ringing out so sweetly, ringing out so clear? Have you seen the star shining out so brightly as a sign from God that Christ the Lord is here? Have you heard the news that they bring from heaven to the humble shepherds who have waited long? Gloria in excelsis Deo! Gloria in excelsis Deo! Hear the angels sing their joyful song. A writer of many Christian hymns, James Montgomery ( PHH 72) composed this Christmas and Epiphany text and published it on Christmas Eve, 1816, in the Sheffield Iris, a newspaper he edited. Montgomery based the text in part on the French carol "Angels We Have Heard on High" (347); it was sung to that tune for over fifty years. Entitling it "Good Tidings of Great Joy to All People," Montgomery republished the text with small alterations in his Christian Psalmist (1825). Written in 1857 by Peter Cornelius, this carol is designed so three male voices can sing a verse each to correspond with the three kings. The Choir of King ’s College, Cambridge do it magnificently.

The lead-up to Christmas is best seen as being from the start of Advent – the period marked by the first of the four Sundays before Christmas – until Christmas Day. The end of Christmas is usually marked by the feast of Epiphany, the day in Christianity where the revelation of baby Jesus is celebrated (usually 6 January). In this song, Lauren Daigle imagines the response of the angels to a child’s prayer of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” She asks, “And can you hear the angels singing, “Glory, glory to the Light of the World’...it is here.” The song also looks beyond Jesus’ birth towards His saving work as our Lord and Savior: “Behold your King, behold Messiah, Emmanuel, Emmanuel.” ( Praisecharts.com) 5. His Name is Jesus (Heaven’s Hope) Words: Attributed to Rev. Richard Hutchins Tune: various inc. Jeremiah Ingalls, Elizabeth Poston and John Rutter tune: Michael Praetorius (1571–1621) written originally to the lyrics of Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming. known among English speakers as "The Christ-Child's Lullaby", as popularized by Marjory Kennedy-Fraser

A permanent fixture in the traditional services of Lessons And Carols, this most famous of carols is set to a tune by Felix Mendelssohn. It began with a much more archaic name; ‘Hark How All The Welkin Rings’, (the welkin being an old-fashioned term for the heavens). But George Whitefield, a colleague of the lyricist Charles Wesley, thought that no-one would understand the meaning, and so he compiled his own hymnal and changed the words himself! As one of the most commonly sung Christmas carols, you might be surprised to hear that this Welsh Melody (Nos Galan) was originally sung with original (and rather bawdy) words! The Welsh tune has English lyrics penned in 1862 by a Scot, Thomas Oliphant. First composed in 1684, ‘Sussex Carol’earned its name when Ralph Vaughan Williams set the text to music in the late 1800s, after he heard it being sung near Sussex.Rather than celebrating the birth of Christ, the text of this hymn represents Christ’s triumphant return. The words, dreamed up by English writer Isaac Watts, are based on the second half of Psalm 98 in the Bible. In the late ’90s, it was named the most-published Christmas hymn in North America. You can just feel the merriness pouring out of it.