Dec
22

My Top 10 Favorite Christmas Hymns

We all have our favorite Christmas/holiday songs, so I figured I’d do a Top 10 list of mine. Well, some of mine. These are just my choices among the hymns and “classic”, Bible-oriented carols. (Maybe I’ll do a non-hymns list another time.) I tried to get a variety of choirs represented.

In alphabetical order…

1) “Angels We Have Heard on High”

Music: unknown author of original French song; to the hymn tune “Gloria”, arranged by Edward Shippen Barnes
Lyrics: James Chadwick (1862), inspired (sometimes loosely) by French original

2) “Hallelujah Chorus”

Music: George Frideric Handel (1741); Part II
Lyrics: Charles Jennens, compiled from the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer

3) “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”

Music: Felix Mendelssohn (1840), “Festgesang”, adapted by William H. Cummings
Lyrics: Charles Wesley (original hymn text, 1739) and George Whitefield (1754 adaptation); minor revision by Tate and Brady (1782)

4) “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear”

Music: Richard Storrs Willis, “Carol” (1850) in the U.S.; “Noel” in British Commonwealth, adapted by Arthur Sullivan (1874)
Lyrics: Edmund Sears (original poem, 1849)

5) “Joy to the World”

Music: Lowell Mason (fourth and most popular version, 1848), an arrangement of “Antioch” by Handel
Lyrics: Isaac Watts (1719)

6) “Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee”

Music: Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No. 9 (1822-1824), “The Hymn of Joy”; adapted by Edward Hodges (1824)
Lyrics: Henry J. van Dyke (1907)

7) “O Come, All Ye Faithful” (“Adeste Fidelis”)

Music: attributed to various authors, including John Francis Wade (1711–1786), John Reading (1645–1692), King John IV of Portugal (1604–1656), and anonymous Cistercian monks
Lyrics: originally in Latin by undetermined author(s); most common English version by Frederick Oakeley (first 4 verses) and William Thomas Brooke (final 3 verses)

8) “O Holy Night”

Music: Adolphe Charles Adam (1847) to French poem “Minuit, chrétiens” (“Midnight, Christians”)
Lyrics: Placide Cappeau (1808–1877) (original poem); John Sullivan Dwight (translated/adapted into popular English version, 1855)

9) “The First Noel”

Music: Traditional carol of Cornish origin; William Sandys and Davies Gilbert (current form, 1823); John Stainer (popular four-part arrangement, 1871)
Lyrics: Traditional; Sandys and Gilbert?