Hark The Herald Angels Sing

Hark The Herald Angels Sing

Last update: Thursday 20th of November 2008

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"Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" is a Christmas hymn or carol written by Charles Wesley, the brother of John Wesley. It first appeared in Hymns and Sacred Poems in 1739. The original opening couplet was "Hark! how all the welkin rings / Glory to the King of Kings". The version known today is the result of alterations by various hands, most notably George Whitefield, Wesley's co-worker, who changed the opening couplet to the familiar one we know today.

One of the tunes originally used for the carol was also used as a tune for Amazing Grace. Wesley himself, however, envisaged his lyrics sung to the same tune as his Easter hymn, Christ the Lord is Risen Today.

The tune that is now almost always used for this carol is based on a chorus composed by Felix Mendelssohn in 1840, part of his cantata Festgesang an die Künstler ("Festival Song") to commemorate the printer Johann Gutenberg and the invention of his printing press. The cantata was first presented at the great festival held at Leipzig. Festgesang's second chorus, "Vaterland, in deinem Gauen", was adapted in 1855 by William Hayman Cummings. Mendelssohn said of the song that it could be used with many different choruses but that it should not be used for sacred music. This may be because the melodic and harmonic structure of the tune are similar to the Gavotte of Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 4; indeed Mendelssohn (who has always been linked with the music of Bach) may simply have adapted Bach's music for his chorus, as was proposed by Nigel Poole with his (transposed) arrangement of the Gavotte as Bach's Christmas Carol.