CHRISTMAS CAROLS

Originally, Carols were dances and not songs.  They were pagan songs sung at the Winter Solstice Celebration as people danced to them.  The church actively opposed these folk dances.  Consequently, tunes originally used to accompany carols became separated from the original dances, but were still referred to as “carols”.  The word carol meant dance or song of praise and joy.

Caroling was very popular during the Victorian Period.  “O Little Town of Bethlehem” and “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” were written during this time.

Many familiar carols we sing today were written by Michigan native, Alfred Burt who was born in Marquette on the shores of Lake Superior on April 22, 1920.  Alfred’s father, Bates Gilbert Burt, was a minister who accepted a call from All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Pontiac in 1922.  From 1922 until 1941, Reverend Burt composed an original Christmas Carol which he would include in his Christmas cards to family and friends.  His son, Alfred, after earning a degree in Music from the University of Michigan in 1942, continued this tradition at the invitation of his father and wrote carols for another 12 years until his death from lung cancer in 1954.

 

 

ANGELS FROM THE REALMS

 

JOY TO THE WORLD

Isaac Watts began writing hymns when he was 18 as a protest against what he thought was the low quality of songs in hymnals.  In 1719 he wrote Joy to the World which he based on Psalm 98:4-9. Despite the fact that some words in the hymn also appear in the psalm, it is difficult to find any close connection between the two.  It is no understatement to say that his work was not immediately appreciated.  Both clergy and lay people complained about the arrogance of someone trying to improve the Psalms.

 

For more than a century the hymn was sung to numerous tunes until 1839 when Lowell Mason took two themes from Handel’s Messiah and wrote the familiar tune we know today.

 

O COME O COME EMMANUEL

 

COVENTRY CAROL

The “Coventry Carol” is an English 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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I HEARD THE BELLS

“I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” is a Christmas carol based on the 1863 poem “Christmas Bells” by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.[1] The song tells of the narrator’s despair, upon hearing Christmas bells, that “hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, good will to men”. The carol concludes with the bells carrying renewed hope for peace among men.

 

AWAY IN A MANGER

Away In A Manger is often the first carol that children are taught.  It was originally published in 1885.

 

O COME ALL YE FAITHFUL

“O Come All Ye Faithful” – sometimes known as the “Portuguese Hymn” because of frequent renditions at the Portuguese Embassy in London – is not only a popular Christmas carol but a rallying cry from a religious minority. “Adeste Fideles”, as the hymn is known in Latin, is thought to have been written by a Catholic, John Francis Wade in 1743. Wade, a music teacher, left England in 1745 when the Jacobite Rebellion was fueling anti-Catholic sentiment, and took refuge at Douai, in France, a haven for British Catholics.

 

WE THREE KINGS

 

IN DULCI JUBILO

 

DANCING DAY

 

 

HERE WE COME A WASSAILING

This German wassail song refers to “wassailing” or singing carols door to door wishing good health.   The Christmas spirit often made the rich a little more generous than usual, and bands of beggars and orphans used to dance their way through the snowy streets of Germany, offering to sing good cheer and to tell good fortune if the householder would give them a drink from his wassail bowl or let them stand for a few minutes beside the warmth of his hearth.   The wassail bowl itself was a hearty combination of hot ale or beer, apples, spices and mead.

 

I WONDER AS I WANDER

 

THE SNOW LAY ON THE GROUND

HARK THE HERALD

The music for Hark the Herald Angels Sing is from the second chorus of a cantata by Felix Mendelssohn written in 1840 to commemorate Johann Gutenberg and the invention of printing.  The words were written a hundred years earlier by Charles Wesley.  In 1855, after both Wesley and Mendelssohn were dead, Dr. William Cummings put the words and music together in spite of strong evidence that neither the composer nor the author would have approved.

 

CAROL OF THE BELLS

 

Carol of the Bells is a Ukrainian carol written in 1914 by Mykola Dmytrovych Leontovych as an assignment for a correspondence course he was taking in composition.  It was premiered in the United States in 1921 by the Ukrainian National Chorus at Carnegie Hall and immediately became popular

 

O LITTLE TOWN OF BETHLEHEM

 

THE FIRST NOEL

 

BRING A TORCH

The French carol Bring a Torch Jeanette, Isabella was written in 1553 in France not as a Christmas carol, but as dance music for the French nobility.

 

DING DONG MERRILY

 

GOOD KING WENSESLAS

 

IN THE BLEAK MID WINTER

 

FUM FUM FUM

Fum, fum, fum is a carol from Spain which probably dates from the mid-sixteenth century and is perhaps the world’s most familiar Spanish carol.  The recurring phrase “fum, fum, fum” is a vocal imitation of the strumming of a guitar which was the traditional accompaniment to many Spanish songs.

 

GOD REST YE MERRY GENTLEMEN

 

PAST THREE O’CLOCK

 

SILENT NIGHT

During the Christmas truce of 1914, when British and German soldiers decided to call a temporary halt to the nightmare of trench warfare, it was “Silent Night” or “Stille Nacht” that united the troops in song. It was, surmised historians, one of the few carols that both sets of men knew by heart, and it is testimony to its international status: it has been translated into 300 languages.

 

Silent Night was written on Christmas Eve in 1818 in Austria by Franz Gruber who used the poem Stille Nacht by Joseph Mohr as his text.  By 1955, Silent Night had become the most recorded song of all time.

 

 

STILL STILL STILL

 

GROUCHESTSHIRE WASSAIL

 

 

LET IT SNOW

 

JOLLY OLD SAINT NICHOLAS

 

UP ON THE HOUSETOP

 

RUDOLPH

In 1939 Robert L. May created the character Rudolph as an assignment for Montgomery Ward, and his brother in-law Johnny Marks decided to adapt the story of Rudolph into a song. Marks was a radio producer who also wrote several other popular Christmas songs.

The song was sung commercially by crooner Harry Brannon on New York City radio in early November 1949, before Gene Autry‘s recording hit No. 1 in the U.S. charts the week of Christmas 1949. Autry’s version of the song also holds the distinction of being the only chart-topping hit to fall completely off the chart first No. 1 song of the 1950s.  Autry’s recording sold 1.75 million copies its first Christmas season, eventually selling a total of 12.5 million. Cover versions included, sales exceed 150 million copies, second only to Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas”

 

SANTA CLAUSE IS COMING TO TOWN

 

 

JINGLE BELLS

Even though Jingle Bells is associated with the Christmas and Holiday season, it was actually originally written to be sung at Thanksgiving.  Jingle Bells was written by James Lord Pierpont around 1857.  The melody to jingle bells can be heard in the French carol “Vive Le Vent” and is also sung in German and Swedish.

 

 

WHITE CHRISTMAS

The most popular Christmas songs of all time is White Christmas.  It was written by Irving Berlin who also happens to be one of the many Jewish composers who wrote Christmas songs.  According to Wikepedia (our trusted source J) , Irving Berlin wrote this song while in a hotel in La Quinta, Californa on a hot summer day.  The original lyrics began…

The sun is shining, the grass is green, the orange and palm trees sway….

 

HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS

 

WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS

“We Wish You A Merry Christmas” is an English folk song from the 1500s and is the remnant of a time when poor carolers would hit up wealthy listeners for handouts. It’s a cheeky tune which recognizes the dynamic between rich and poor, calling for figgy pudding and refusing to leave the wealthy person’s doorstep until some is delivered “right here.” This is an awfully ardent demand for a Christmas song, so it’s meant to be sung with a certain degree of joshing.

As old English Christmas carols go, there are very few which mention the new year coming a week after Christmas.  This is interesting mostly because January 1 wasn’t considered the new year in the Western world until the 1700s. So, in light of that history, it could be that the “and a happy new year” line was not added until later.