Festival of Lessons and
Carols – John Leavitt
John
Leavitt (b. 1956) is a composer, conductor, teacher, and church musician. He
received the Doctorate of Musical Arts from The Conservatory of Music at the
University of Missouri-Kansas City. Dr. Leavitt is a lifetime member of the
American Choral Directors Association and is a member of the American Society
of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, from which he has received annual
recognition for his achievements in composition. Currently, Dr. Leavitt serves on the faculty
of MidAmerica Nazarene University in Olathe, KS as professor of music and
director of choirs. In 2010, Dr. Leavitt was the recipient of a grant from the
National Endowment for the Arts’s American Masterpieces which partnered with
the Kansas Arts Commission and the Kansas Music Educators Association. He was
commissioned by them to write a new choral work in celebration of the 150th
anniversary of the State of Kansas.
Once in Royal David’s
City
As a small girl, Cecil Frances Humphries (1818-1895)
wrote poetry in her school's journal. In 1850, she married Rev. William
Alexander, who later became the Anglican primate (chief bishop) of Ireland. She
showed her concern for disadvantaged people by traveling many miles each day to
visit the sick and the poor, providing food, warm clothes, and medical
supplies. She and her sister also founded a school for the deaf. Alexander was
strongly influenced by the Oxford Movement and by John Keble's Christian
Year. Her first book of poetry, Verses for Seasons, was a
"Christian Year" for children. She wrote hymns based on the Apostles'
Creed, baptism, the Lord's Supper, the Ten Commandments, and prayer, writing in
simple language for children. Her more than four hundred hymn texts were
published in Verses from the Holy Scripture ( 1846), Hymns
for Little Children (1848), and Hymns Descriptive and Devotional
(1858).
Hymns for Little Children contained thirteen hymns written to explain phrases from
the Apostles' Creed. One of these was “Once in Royal David's City,” which
elaborates on the phrases “who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the
Virgin Mary.” Each stanza explores part of the contrast between Jesus' divinity
and humanity. The first stanza contrasts the grand idea of “royal David's city”
with the lowliness of a cattle-shed, and the second, the glory of heaven, from
where He came, with the poverty of earth to which He came. The hymn ends by
reminding us that Christ has ascended once again to glory, where we shall see
Him, as He said: “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and
take you to be with me that you also may be where I am” (John 14:3 NIV).
The English composer Henry J. Gauntlett (1805-1876) wrote the hymn tune IRBY, which was first
published in the Evangelical Lutheran Hymnal, 1908.
Since 1919, the Festival of Nine
Lessons and Carols at the King's College
Chapel Cambridge has begun its Christmas Eve service, with Dr. Arthur Henry Mann's arrangement of "Once in
Royal David's City" as the Processional hymn.
Once in royal David’s city Stood a lowly cattle shed,
Where a mother laid her Baby In a manger for His bed.
Mary was that mother mild, Jesus Christ, her only Child.
He came down to earth from heaven Who is God and Lord of
all,
And His shelter was a stable, And His cradle was a stall.
With the poor and mean and low Lived our Savior long ago.
But our eyes in truth should see Him Through His own
redeeming love;
For that Child so dear and gentle Is our Lord in heaven
above.
As He leads His children on To the place where He is
gone.
Not in that poor lowly stable With the oxen standing by
Shall we see Him, but in heaven, Set at God’s right hand
on high.
Then like stars His children, crowned All in white, His
praise will sound!
O Come, O Come Emmanuel
The pre-history of the text stretches back to the origins
of the O Antiphons, which were in
existence by, at the latest, the eighth century. They were paraphrased extensively by the
English poet Cynewulf in a poem written before the year 800. While "O come, O come, Emmanuel" is
often linked with the 12th century, the earliest surviving evidence of the
hymn's text is in the seventh edition of Psalteriolum Cantionum Catholicarum,
which was published in Cologne in 1710. That hymnal was a major force in the history of German church music: first
assembled by Jesuit hymnographer Johannes
Herringsdorf in 1610 and receiving numerous revised editions through 1868, it
achieved enormous impact due to its use in Jesuit schools.
The text of the Psalteriolum Cantionum Catholicarum version is essentially
expanded, rather than altered, over the subsequent centuries. That version
exhibits all of the hymn's characteristic qualities: it is strophic and metrical, and the
order is altered so that the last of the O Antiphons (the titular "Veni
Emmanuel") becomes the first verse of the hymn. Each stanza consists of a
four-line verse, which adapts one of the antiphons, and a new two-line refrain
("Gaude, gaude! Emmanuel \ nascetur pro te, Israel," i.e.
"Rejoice, Rejoice, Emmanuel \ Shall come to thee, O Israel"), which
provides an explicitly Advent-oriented response to the petition of the verse.
The familiar tune called Veni Emmanuel was first
linked with this hymn in 1851, when Thomas Helmore published it in the Hymnal
Noted, paired with an early revision of Neale's English translation of the
text. The volume listed the tune as being "From a French Missal in the National
Library, Lisbon." The
pairing of the hymn text with the Veni Emmanuel tune was an extremely
significant combination. The hymn text was embraced both out of a Romantic interest in poetic
beauty and medieval exoticism and out of a concern for matching hymns to
liturgical seasons and functions rooted in the Oxford Movement in the Church of
England. The Hymnal Noted, in which the words and tune were first
combined, represented these goals. This hymnal consisted entirely of versions of
Latin hymns, designed for use as Office hymns within the Anglican Church
despite the fact that Office hymns had no part in the authorized liturgy. The
music was drawn chiefly from plainchant, as was the case with the Veni
Emmanuel tune for "O Come, O Come Emmanuel.”
O come, O come,
Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel,
That mourns
in lonely exile here until the Son of God appear,
Rejoice!
Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O
Israel.
O come,
thou Wisdom from on high, and order all things far and nigh;
To us
the path of knowledge sho and cause us in her ways to go.
Rejoice!
Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O
Israel.
O come,
O come, great Lord of might, who to thy tribes on Sinai’s height
In ancient
times once gave the law in cloud and majesty and awe.
Rejoice!
Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O
Israel.
O come,
thou Root of Jesse’s tree, and ensign of they people be;
Before thee
rulers silent fall; all people on Thy mercy call.
Rejoice!
Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O
Israel.
Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming
"Es ist ein Ros entsprungen" ("A rose has
sprung up"), most commonly translated to English as "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming" or
"A Spotless Rose", is
a Christmas carol and Marian Hymn of German origin. The text is thought to be penned by an anonymous author, and the piece first
appeared in print in the late 16th century. The English translation "Lo, How a Rose
E'er Blooming" was written by Theodore Baker in 1894.
This German carol from the Rhineland region combines the story of Luke 1-2 and
Matthew 2 with Isaiah's prophecies about the "rose" from the
"stem of Jesse " (Isa. 11:1; 35:1-2). Stanzas 1 and 2 are a
combination of folklore ("amid the cold of winter") and
Christological interpretation of Isaiah 11:1 and 35: 1-2. Stanza 3 introduces
imagery from John 1.
"Es ist ein Ros entsprungen," may date to the
fifteenth century. However, the earliest manuscript containing the text, found
in St. Alban's Carthusian monastery in Trier and preserved in
the Trier municipal library, is dated around 1580. It was first published
with twenty-three stanzas in Alte catholische geistliche Kirchengesiinge
(Cologne, 1599). Originally stanza 2 interpreted the "rose" as being
Mary, mother of Jesus, but in Musae Sionae (1609) Michael
Praetorius changed the interpretation to point to Christ as the rose in accord
with actual biblical imagery.
Michael Praetorius (1571-1621) was a
German composer, organist, and music theorist. He
was one of the most versatile composers of his age, being particularly significant
in the development of musical forms based on Protestant hymns, many of which reflect an effort to
improve the relationship between Protestants and Catholics.
After receiving his musical education, from 1587 he served as organist
at the Marienkirche in Frankfurt. From 1592/3 he served at the court in Wolfenbüttel, under the employ of Henry Julius, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg. He served in the
duke's State Orchestra, first as organist and later (from 1604) as Kapellmeister.
From 1613 until his death, Praetorius was employed by the court in Dresden, where he was declared Kapellmeister von Haus aus and worked with Heinrich Schütz. Michael Praetorius died on his 50th birthday, in Wolfenbüttel, Germany and is entombed in a vault beneath the organ of the Marienkirche there.
Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming From tender stem hath
sprung!
Of Jesse’s lineage coming, as men of old have sung.
It came, a Floweret bright, Amid the cold of winter,
When half-spent was the night.
Isaiah ‘twas foretold it, The Rose I have in mind;
With Mary we behold it, The Virgin Mother kind.
To show God’s love aright She bore to men a Savior
When half-spent was the night.
This Flower, whose fragrance tender With sweetness fills
the air;
Dispels with glorious splendor The darkness everywhere.
True man, yet very God, From sin and death He saves us
And lightens every load.
O Little Town of Bethlehem
“O Little Town of Bethlehem” was written by Phillips Brooks (1835–1893), an Episcopal priest, Rector of the Church of the Holy Trinity, Philadelphia. He was inspired by
visiting the Palestinian city of Bethlehem in 1865. “After an early dinner, we took our horses and rode to
Bethlehem,” he wrote home in Christmas week of 1865. “It was only about two
hours when we came to the town, situated on an eastern ridge of a range of
hills, surrounded by its terraced gardens. It is a good-looking town, better
built than any other we have seen in Palestine. . . . Before dark, we rode out
of town to the field where they say the shepherds saw the star. It is a fenced
piece of ground with a cave in it (all the Holy Places are caves here), in
which, strangely enough, they put the shepherds. The story is absurd, but
somewhere in those fields we rode through the shepherds must have been. . . .
As we passed, the shepherds were still “keeping watch over their flocks or
leading them home to fold.” Three years later, he wrote the poem for his church and
his organist, Lewis Redner, write the hymn tune
ST. LOUIS.
O little town of
Bethlehem, How still we see thee lit!
Above
thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by.
Yet in
thy dark streets shineth, The everlasting Light;
The
hopes and fears of all the years Are met in thee tonight.
For Christ is born of
Mary and gathered all above,
While mortals sleep, the angels keep their watch of
wondering love.
O morning stars, together Proclaim the holy birth;
And praises sing to God the king, And peace to all the
earth.
O holy Child of
Bethlehem, Descend to us, we pray.
Cast out
our sin, and enter in; Be born to us today.
We hear
the Christmas angels The great glad tidings tell.
O come
to us, abide with us, Our Lord, Immanuel!
Angels From the Realms
of Glory
This
hymn was written by James Montgomery (1771-1854), who was born in Scotland of
Irish parents. His father, John Montgomery, was a Moravian pastor -
apparently the only Moravian pastor serving in Scotland at the time. James Montgomery was
just six years old when heard of the death of both his parents who had been in
Barbados on a missionary trip. He spent the remainder of his childhood being
raised within the school system in Ireland, where he did not excel academically.
As a teenager, James was placed in an apprenticeship position to a baker. He
grew frustrated with that position and so ran away to Sheffield, England. There
he took on various jobs to support himself, while trying to find his niche.
In his early 20s, James was hired to work for a
politically active newspaper, the Sheffield Register. James found that
he loved to write, and that he was good at it. When the owner of the paper had
to flee the country in order to avoid imprisonment, James purchased the newspaper,
after which he himself was imprisoned twice for political articles that did not
sit well with the governing authorities.
Throughout all his ups and downs, James remained a devout
Christian. He remembered well the lessons taught to him by his missionary
parents. He chose to follow in their footsteps and to champion the cause of
Christ. His newspaper was his pulpit to speak out against social and moral
injustice. And in that same paper he published his original hymns of praise. Angels
From the Realms of Glory appeared in print on Christmas Eve, 1816.
The tune associated with this hymn is
"Regent Square", written by Henry Smart (1813-1879), an English
organist and composer, in 1867. Smart named the tune after the Regent
Square Presbyterian Church in London. Smart was quite influential in
persuading the Anglican Church to adopt congregational singing of hymns.
Luther (1483-1546) had introduced congregational singing much earlier in
Germany, and had even written a number of hymns. Isaac Watts (1674-1748) had
written hundreds of hymns and had popularized hymn singing in non-conforming
English churches. Charles Wesley (1707-1788) had done the same for
Methodist Churches. The Anglican Church, however, resisted hymn singing
until quite late. But Smart was a man of substantial energy and
reputation, and was able to turn the tide and to persuade the Anglican Church
to adopt hymn singing.
Angels from the realms of glory, wing your flight o’er
all the earth;
Ye who
sang creation’s story now proclaim Messiah’s birth:
Come and
worhip, come and worship, worship Christ, the newborn King.
Shepherds,
in the fielde abiding, watching o’er your flocks by night,
God with
us is now residing; yonder shines the infant light;
Come and
worhip, come and worship, worship Christ, the newborn King.
Sages,
leave your contemplations, brighter visions beam afar;
Seek the
great Desire of nations; ye have seen his natal star:
Come and
worhip, come and worship, worship Christ, the newborn King.
Saints,
before the altar bending, watching long in hope and fear;
Suddenly
the Lord, descending, in his temple shall appear;
Come and
worhip, come and worship, worship Christ, the newborn King.
Away in a Manger
The origin of this popular Christmas hymn is shrouded in
apocryphal associations with Martin Luther (1483-1546). Methodist
hymnologist Fred Gealy (1894-1976) noted that “evidence suggests that [“Away in
a Manger”] is wholly an American product. The original two-stanza form probably
originated among German Lutherans in Pennsylvania about 1885.” The hymn
first appeared with two stanzas in Little Children’s Book for Schools and
Families, a Sunday school collection published in 1885 by the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in North America.
Stanza three first appeared unattributed in Gabriel’s Vineyard Songs (1892), compiled by gospel composer Charles H. Gabriel (1856-1932). Gealy conjectured “the song may have been contributed by an editor or publisher who thought the two narrative stanzas needed to be supplemented by a prayer.”
The only German version of the carol is clearly a translation from the English because the metrics are not natural to the German language. Furthermore, this version was first included in Herbert W. Werneke’s Christmas Songs and Weihnachts-Lieder (1934), a privately published collection. The false association between “Away in a Manger” and Luther appears to have been made by James R. Murray (1841-1905), who in his Dainty Songs for Little Lads and Lasses (1887) called it “‘Luther’s Cradle Hymn,’ composed by Martin Luther for his children and still sung by German mothers to their little ones.” However, no one has uncovered an original German version by the reformer. Theophilus Baker Stork (1814-1874) wrote Luther at Home (1872), in which he stated, “Luther’s carol for Christmas, written for his own child Hans, is still sung.” The irony of this assertion is that we actually have a Luther hymn that may have been
written for young Hans, “Von Himmel hoch da komm ich her”
(1531), published in Joseph Klug’s Gesangsbuch (1535).
“Away in a Manger” is
sung to several tunes. This setting uses
AFTON WATER, by Jonathan
E. Spilman (1812-1896), who was a Kentucky lawyer, minister, and composer. While at Transylvania Law School, in 1837,
he wrote the music for Robert Burns' "Flow gently, sweet Afton". After working
as a lawyer for 18 years, he became Presbyterian minister at
the age of 46.
Away
in a manger, no crib for a bed,
The little Lord Jesus laid down His sweet
head.
The
stars in the bright sky looked down where He lay,
The little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay.
The cattle are lowing, the Baby awakes ,
But little Lord Jesus, no crying He makes.
I love Thee, Lord Jesus, look down from the
sky,
And stay by my cradle till morning is nigh.
Be near me, Lord Jesus; I ask Thee to stay
Close by me forever, and love me, I pray.
Bless all the dear children in Thy tender
care,
And take us to heaven to live with Thee
there.
Angels
We Have Heard on High
"Angels We Have Heard on High" is
a Christmas carol of French origin 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 Bethlehem encounter a multitude of angels
singing and praising the newborn child. People began to chant the
phrase "Gloria in excelsis Deo" in Christmas Eve worship services as
early as 130 A.D. In medieval times, French shepherds had a
Christmas Eve tradition of shouting "Gloria in excelsis Deo" to each
other as they watched over their sheep flocks on their respective hills in
southern France. A
Latin chorale version may have inspired the traditional French Christmas carol
'Les Anges dans nos Campagnes,' which Edward Shippen Barnes used in the 1800s
to arrange the first version of 'Angels We Have Heard on High' with the hymn
tune GLORIA. The most common English
version that was translated in 1862 by James Chadwick, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Hexham
and Newcastle, northeast England. 'Angels We Have Heard on High' was first
published in English as part of an 1862 book called Crown of Jesus Music.
But the version that has become popular worldwide was published later, in 1916,
in the book Carols Old and Carols New.
Angels
we have heard on high sweetly singing o’er the plains,
And
the mountains in reply echoing their joyous strains,
Gloria,
in excelsis Deo! Gloria, in excelsis Deo!
Shepherds,
why this jubilee? Why your joyous strains
prolong?
What
the gladsome tidings be which inspire your heavenly song?
Gloria,
in excelsis Deo! Gloria, in excelsis Deo!
Come
to Bethlehem and see Christ whose birth the angels sing;
Come
adore on bended knee, Christ the Lord, the newborn King.
Gloria,
in excelsis Deo! Gloria, in excelsis Deo!
See
him in a manger laid, whom the choirs of angels praise;
Mary,
Joseph, lend your aid, while our hearts in love we raise.
Gloria, in excelsis
Deo! Gloria, in excelsis Deo!
As With Gladness Men of Old
"As with Gladness Men of Old" is a hymn, written by William Chatterton Dix on 6 January 1859, while he was ill in bed. Considered
by many as a Christmas carol, it is found in
the Epiphany section of The Hymnal, published by Abingdon in 1941 and still
used by many churches. The hymn was written on Epiphany. The music was written by Konrad Kocher in 1838. The same
melody is used in "For the Beauty of the Earth."
William Chatterton Dix (1837-1989) found himself
sick in bed on Jan 6, 1859, Epiphany day. He was too sick to go to work, but not sick
enough to sleep all day. For a diversion, he read the scripture for the
day, which turned out to be the story of the visit of the Magi to the baby Jesus (Matthew 2:1-12). As Dix rested, that story kept running
through his mind. Dix began to pen the verses of this song. Before the day
was over, he had completed it. Dix was
ill for an extended period of time, and wrote a number of hymns in this
fashion, including the ever-popular “What Child is This?” Interestingly for a man who wrote a hymn
about outsiders (Gentiles) being brought inside the tent, Dix was somewhat an
outsider himself—a layman, not a member of the clergy. However, his hymns
have continued to proclaim the Gospel long after his death in 1898.
People would have thought of the Magi as priests
or wise men—possibly as astrologers. They would have been powerful
men—the kind of people who would honor any home by their visit.
Tertullian later called them kings, saying that they fulfilled Isaiah’s
prophecy, “Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of
your rising” (Isaiah 60:3). Still later, people began to assume that,
since there were three gifts (gold, frankincense, and myrrh), there must have
been three Magi. They even gave them names—Melchior, Balthazar, and
Caspar—but those are not Biblical names.
The significance of the story is that the Magi were Gentiles.
Matthew’s Gospel is the most Jewish of the four Gospels, but Matthew brings
these Gentiles into the tent as honored guests very early in his Gospel—and
closes his Gospel by challenging his disciples to “make disciples of all
nations” (Matthew 28:19). That was Matthew’s way of telling his readers
that God had enough love to embrace all people—not just Jews. The story
of these Magi gives us a picture, writ small, of God’s great love.
An early form of the tune DIX was composed by Conrad
Kocher (1786-1872). Trained as a teacher, Kocher moved to St. Petersburg,
Russia, to work as a tutor at the age of seventeen. But his love for the music
of Haydn and Mozart impelled him to a career in music. He moved back to Germany
in 1811, settled in Stuttgart, and remained there for most of his life. The
prestigious Cotta music firm published some of his early compositions and sent
him to study music in Italy, where he came under the influence of Palestrina's
music. In 1821 Kocher founded the School for Sacred Song in Stuttgart, which
popularized four-part singing in the churches of that region. He was organist
and choir director at the Striftsckirche in Stuttgart from 1827 to 1865. Kocher
wrote a treatise on church music, Die Tonkunst in der Kirche(1823), collected a large number of chorales in Zions Harfe (1855), and
composed an oratorio, two operas, and some sonatas. William H. Monk created the
current form of DIX by revising and shortening Conrad Kocher's chorale melody
for “Treuer Heiland, wir sind hir,” found in Kocher's Stimmen aus den Reiche Gottes (1838).
Monk's tune was published with Dix's text in the 1861 edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern, of which Monk
was music editor. Dix regretted the use of this tune for his text, but the
combination has proven a good match–"As with Gladness" is the most
popular Epiphany hymn today.
As
with gladness men of old Did the guiding star behold;
As
with joy they hailed its light, Leading onward, beaming bright.
So,
most gracious Lord, may we Evermore be led by Thee.
As
they offered gifts most rare At Thy cradle, rude and bare,
So
may we with holy joy, Pure and free from sin’s alloy,
All
our costliest treasures bring, Christ, to Thee our heavenly King.
In
the heavenly country bright Need they no created light;
Thou
its light, its joy, its crown, Thou its sun which goes not down;
There
forever may we sing Alleluias to our King.
Coventry
Carol
"Coventry Carol" is an
English Christmas carol dating
from the 16th century. The carol was traditionally performed in Coventry in England as part of a mystery play called The Pageant of the Shearmen and
Tailors. The play depicts the Christmas story from chapter two in the Gospel of Matthew: the carol itself refers to the Massacre of the Innocents,
in which Herod ordered all
male infants under the age of two in Bethlehem to be killed, and takes the form of a lullaby sung by mothers of the doomed children.
The carol is the second of
three songs included in the Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors, a nativity play that was one of the Coventry Mystery Plays,
originally performed by the city's guilds. The exact date of the text
is unknown, though there are references to the Coventry guild pageants from
1392 onwards. The single surviving text of the carol and the pageant containing
it was edited by one Robert Croo, who dated his manuscript 14 March 1534. Croo,
or Crowe, acted for some years as the 'manager' of the city pageants. Over a
twenty-year period, payments are recorded to him for playing the part of God in
the Drapers' Pageant, for making a hat for a "pharysye", and for
mending and making other costumes and props, as well as for supplying new
dialogue and for copying out the Shearmen and Tailors' Pageant in a version
which Croo described as "newly correcte". Croo seems to have
worked by adapting and editing older material, while adding his own rather
ponderous and undistinguished verse.
Religious changes caused
the plays' suppression during the later 16th century, but Croo's prompt-book,
including the songs, survived and a transcription was eventually published by
the Coventry antiquarian Thomas Sharp in 1817 as
part of his detailed study of the city's mystery plays. Sharp published a
second edition in 1825 which included the songs' music. Both printings were
intended to be a facsimile of Croo's manuscript, copying both the orthography
and layout; this proved fortunate as Croo's original manuscript, which had
passed into the collection of the Birmingham Free Library,
was destroyed in a fire there in 1879. Sharp's transcriptions are therefore the only
source; Sharp had a reputation as a careful scholar, and his copying of the
text of the women's carol appears to be accurate.
Within the pageant,
the carol is sung by three women of Bethlehem, who enter on stage with their
children immediately after Joseph is warned by an angel to take his family to
Egypt: Sharp's
publication of the text stimulated some renewed interest in the pageant and
songs, particularly in Coventry itself. Although the Coventry mystery play
cycle was traditionally performed in summer, the lullaby has been in modern
times regarded as a Christmas carol. It was brought to a wider audience after being featured in
the BBC's Empire Broadcast at Christmas 1940, shortly after the Bombing of Coventry in World War II, when the
broadcast concluded with the singing of the carol in the bombed-out ruins of
the Cathedral.
The carol's music was added
to Croo's manuscript at a later date by Thomas Mawdyke, his additions being
dated 13 May 1591. Mawdyke wrote out the music in three-part harmony, though
whether he was responsible for its composition is debatable, and the music's
style could be indicative of an earlier date. The three (alto, tenor and
baritone) vocal parts confirm that, as was usual with mystery plays, the parts
of the "mothers" singing the carol were invariably played by men. The original three-part version contains a
"startling" false relation (F# in treble, F in tenor) at "by,
by".
Mawdyke, who may be
identifiable with a tailor of that name living in the St Michael's parish of
Coventry in the late 16th century, is thought to have made his additions as
part of an unsuccessful attempt to revive the play cycle in the summer of 1591,
though in the end the city authorities chose not to support the revival. The
surviving pageants were revived in the Cathedral from 1951 onwards.
Lullay,
Thou little tiny Child, By, by, lully, lullay;
Lullay,
Thou little tiny Child, By, by, lully, lullay.
O
sisters, too, how may we do, For to preserve this day;
This
poor Young thing for whom we do sing, By, by, lully, lullay.
Herod
the King, in his raging, Charged he hath this day;
His
men of might, in his own sight, All children young to slay.
Then
woe is me, poor Child, for Thee, And ever mourn and say;
For
Thy parting nor say nor sing, By, by, lully, lullay.
Only
Begotten, Word of God Eternal
Christi
cunctorum Dominator alme, a Latin
hymn from the 9th century, was translated by Julius Blacker Maxwell
(1822-1888), who was educated at Merton College, Oxford, ordained in 1848, and held
several curacies, including that of St. Barnabas, Pimlico.
Only begotten, Word of God eternal Lord of creation,
merciful and mighty
Hear us Your servants, as our tuneful voices rise in Your
presenace.
Holy, this temple where our Lord is dwelling; This is
none other than the gate of heaven.
Ever Your children, year by year rejoicing, Chant in Your
temple.
God in three Persons, Father everlasting, Son co-eternal,
every blessed Spirit;
To You be praises, thanks and adoration, Glory forever,
glory hallelujah!
The carol we now know as "Hark! the herald angels
sing" did not start life as such, and required at least four people to
bring it to its current form. Wesley's original, written as a Christmas Day
hymn and first published in 1739, is made up of ten four-line verses, rather
than the longer eight-line verses with refrain which we have now. It is interesting to note that in the
original version of Wesley's, the heavens ring with the phrase "Glory to
the King of kings," echoing Luke's "Glory to God in the highest
heaven." George Whitfield, who had
been a student with Wesley, changed this to "Glory to the newborn
King" in 1753. His fairly revolutionary Calvinist position was not
compatible with Wesley's gentler reforming approach, which eventually bore
fruit in the Methodist movement that he and his brother John inspired,
Whitfield maintained the four-line verses of Wesley's original, but changed the
angels' emphasis: "Glory to the newborn King" means something
slightly but significantly different from "Glory to the King of kings."
In the Gospel account, the angels praise God, whereas in "Hark! the herald
angels sing," they are inaccurately described as praising Jesus. Furthermore, Luke does not say that the angels
"sing," and so it may well be that this reinterpretation by Whitfield
has emphasized the popular but unscriptural picture of angels singing the
Gloria. ("While shepherds watched" also implies that they sang.)
The familiar tune, MENDELSSOHN, is an
adaptation of a melody from Felix Mendelssohn’s Festgesang for male
chorus and orchestra.
Hark! The herald angels sing, “Glory to the
newborn King;
Peace on earth, and mercy mild, God
and sinners reconciled.”
Joyful, all you nations, rise, Join
the triumph of the skies;
With angelic hosts proclaim, “Christ
is born in Bethlehem!”
Hark! The herald angels sing, “Glory
to the newborn King!”
Christ
by highest heaven adored, Christ, the everlasting Lord,
Late
in time behold Him come, Offspring of a virgin’s womb.
Veiled
in flesh the Godhead see; Hail, incarnate Deity!
Pleased
as man with us to dwell, Jesus, our Emmanuel!
Hark!
The herald angels sing, “Glory to the newborn King!”
Hail, the heaven-born Prince of Peace!
Hail, the Son of righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings, Ris’n
with healing in His wings.
Mild He lays His glory by, Born that
man no more may die,
Born to raise each child of earth,
Born to give us second birth.
Hark! The herald angels sing, “Glory
to the newborn King!” 
About the Organ Music:
Hark!
The Herald Angels Sing – Gordon Young
George
Whitfield cut the final verses, which are now largely forgotten:
Come,
desire of nations, come,
Fix in us thy humble home;
Rise, the woman's conquering seed,
Bruise in us the serpent's head.
Fix in us thy humble home;
Rise, the woman's conquering seed,
Bruise in us the serpent's head.
Now
display thy saving power,
Ruin'd nature now restore;
Now in mystic union join
Thine to ours, and ours to thine.
Ruin'd nature now restore;
Now in mystic union join
Thine to ours, and ours to thine.
Adam's
likeness, Lord, efface,
Stamp thy image in its place.
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in thy love.
Stamp thy image in its place.
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in thy love.
Let us
thee, though lost, regain,
Thee, the life, the inner man:
O, to all thyself impart,
Form'd in each believing heart.
Thee, the life, the inner man:
O, to all thyself impart,
Form'd in each believing heart.
There is some real
theological insight in these neglected verses. First of all we notice the
Advent antiphon "Come, desire of nations, come," followed by a
reference to the Fall, with the serpent bruising the heel of humanity and Adam
bruising its head (Genesis 3:15). Wesley cleverly alters the meaning, asking
that the serpent in us (sin) should be bruised (defeated) by Christ, the second
Adam, who reinstates us as beloved sons and daughters of God. In the
restoration of sinful humanity to a state of grace through the incarnation of
Christ, the joining of divine and human nature is also achieved. Consequently,
that which was lost (salvation) is gained and a new life is granted to all
believers.
Gordon Young (1919-1998) was born in McPherson, Kansas, and
during his lifetime was recognized as one of this country's great church
organists. He was a prolific and talented composer for both organ and choir,
with nearly 1000 published works. During
the course of his career, he was a radio organist in Tulsa, a music critic and
columnist for daily newspapers in Oklahoma and Pennsylvania, and choirmaster in
churches in Philadelphia and Kansas City. Mr. Young taught organ in conjunction
with Wayne State University and for 15 years was organist and choir director at
the First Presbyterian Church in Detroit.
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