From silent nights to joyful worlds:
The timeless tales of Christmas hymns Merry Christmas!
As you’ve been out and about this last month, you’ve no doubt heard many Christmas carols. The typically uplifting melodies featuring minor and diminished chords, such as in “God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen,” lend an air of festivity and set apart the season as a special time of year.
This week I will explore the history of the Christmas carol itself, as well as the backstories of several popular carols, courtesy of the video “The Unintended Christmas Carol” by Dutch Sheets. (I realize you may or may not receive this paper by Christmas Day, but even if it’s a day or too late, I hope you won’t mind too much as we’re still in the Christmas season.)
According to the Museum of the Bible, there are 10,000 songs about or for Christmas (9,274 songs to be exact). Since the average song runs approximately 3.5 minutes, you would have to sing Christmas songs 24/7 from Dec. 1 to Dec. 24 to sing them all.
Carols weren’t originally just for Christmas. The word “carol” originally meant to dance or indicated the song should be danced to. The first Christmas carol came around AD 129, just 30 years after the death of the apostle John. The bishop of Rome at the time, Telesphorus, decreed that “In the Holy Night of the Nativity of our Lord and Savior, all shall solemnly sing the ‘Angel’s Hymn.’” The lyrics come from Luke 2:14.
Some of the earliest carols were written and sung in Latin, making it difficult for the common people to remember them. Thus they fell out of use. However, in 1223, when St. Francis of Assisi began his Nativity plays in Italy, songs and canticles sung in the language of the people watching told the story of Jesus’ birth. This helped the new carols spread throughout Europe.
There are several carols called the “O” songs that name Christ by different Biblical titles. Many of these date back to the Middle Ages. For example, the lyrics of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” go back to at least the 12th century, and the melody as far back as the 15th century.“O Come, All Ye Faithful” was probably composed by Cistercian monks in the Middle Ages, although the English lyrics weren’t copied down until 1751.
Let’s dive into some specific carols.
-“Joy to the World” – This song, written in 1719 by Isaac Watts, has been the most publicized Christmas hymn in North America. However, it was not intended to be about Christ’s first coming (or advent), but rather His second coming. This poem about the reigning King is based on Psalm 98. The psalm reads, “Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.” “Joy to the World” also has an allusion to the book of Genesis. Stanza three states: No more let sins and sorrows grow / Nor thorns infest the ground / He comes to make His blessings flow / Far as the curse is found. These lyrics reflect the undoing of the curse brought about by sin (see Gen. 3:17-19), in a new world where there is no more curse (Rev. 22:3).
-“O Little Town of Bethlehem” – Phillips Brooks was a scholar and Episcopalian preacher, who taught at Yale University. However, he is best known for penning this song after a life-changing trip. In 1865, Brooks rode on horseback from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, where he participated in the Church of the Nativity’s five-hour long Christmas Eve celebration. Returning home, he channeled his experience into the hymn so well-known today.
The hymn was first performed in 1868 by Brooks’ church’s children’s choir. The church organist, Lewis Redner, composed the tune. Redner describes his experience as such: “As Christmas of 1868 approached, Mr. Brooks told me that he had written a simple little carol for the Christmas Sunday-school service, and he asked me to write the tune to it. The simple music was written in great haste and under great pressure. We were to practice it on the following Sunday. Mr. Brooks came to me on Friday, and said, ‘Redner, have you ground out that music yet to “O Little Town of Bethlehem”?’ I replied, ‘No,’ but that he should have it by Sunday. On the Saturday night previous my brain was all confused about the tune. I thought more about my Sunday-school lesson than I did about the music. But I was roused from sleep late in the night hearing an angel-strain whispering in my ear, and seizing a piece of music paper I jotted down the treble of the tune as we now have it, and on Sunday morning before going to church I filled in the harmony. Neither Mr. Brooks nor I ever thought the carol or the music to it would live beyond that Christmas of 1868.”
How wrong they were!
One of the lesser-known verses is as follows:
Where children pure and happy pray to the blessed Child / Where Misery cries out to Thee, Son of the Mother mild / Where Charity stands watching and faith holds wide the door /The dark night wakes, the glory breaks and Christmas comes once more.
-“Silent Night” – This is the world’s most recorded Christmas song, with more than 137,000 known recordings.
Father Joseph Mohr wrote “Silent Night” in 1816, after the Napoleonic Wars had taken their toll on Austria. He went for a walk one evening and looked over a quiet, snow-laden town and was inspired to write the serene lyrics. In 1818, Mohr was preparing the music for Christmas Eve midnight Mass, and asked his friend Franz Gruber, a schoolteacher, to write a guitar accompaniment for the poem he had written two years earlier. That night, the two men sang their brand-new song at St. Nicholas Church and the carol was born.
One common myth is that the song was composed on guitar because the church organ was broken, possibly because of flooding on a nearby river or because mice destroyed it. However, no one knows the true reason it came to be composed on guitar; perhaps it was because Mohr also played guitar.
Bing Crosby’s 1935 version of “Silent Night” sold a whopping 30 million copies.
-At this time of year, it is fitting we should sing such songs, joining with people across the centuries in giving voice to the wonder of Christ’s birth.
Striking a
Chord...
