Wednesday, December 25, 2024

*** This is a rough transcript of today’s show ***

It is December 25, 2024. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org. I’m Dan van Voorhis.

Merry Christmas! From everyone here at 1517, I wish you and yours a very blessed Nativity, Christmas, and all of it… however, you observe it.

As I promised on an earlier show today, I will give you the story behind a beloved Christmas hymn, and it is one I have told parts of before- but it involves three men and over a century and one of the most beloved Christmas hymns.

Perhaps for the younger set, Panic! At the Disco has normalized an exclamation point mid-sentence, but it was done earlier in 1739 with none other than Charles Wesley (see his birthday show last week) and his “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”.

But it’s something of a complicated story of how it got to us with its words and melody.

As you may have heard Wesley may have written up to a hymn a day over 50 years- he was that productive- and there is virtually no major biblical event or theme he didn’t write on. And, of course, when it comes to singing the story of the Angels proclaiming the birth of the Messiah is one of the more popular stories to set to music.

So in 1736, Charles Wesley penned the original words- two notes:

He initially wrote “Hark How all the Welkin Ring”

The Welkin Ring, you know… like Middle Earth?

Almost- the Welkin is the heavens- or firmament… it’s old-timey cosmology. But even then, it sounded weird, so George Whitfield came to the rescue with “Hark The Herald Angels Sing”- much more sonorous and clear. What are “Herald Angels”- well, the ones singing about Jesus, we better “hark”!

Wesley thought this was a nice Christmas parallel to his triumphant Easter hymn, “Christ the Lord is Risen Today”, in fact, they are written in the same meter, so you can sing either to either tune. You can pause and try if you want.

The tune you know today came from one of the most consequential composers of the modern age: Felix Mendelssohn. He has his own almanac show, but he came from a Jewish family that was baptized to avoid exile—and from those “mock baptisms,” as some called them, came true faith in the likes of Felix.

He would write a song for the anniversary of the Printing Press, invented by Gutenberg. He wanted something peppy, rousing, patriotic… and the tune that bears his name, “Mendelssohn,” would have never been sung with this hymn if he had anything to do with it. He said of the tune for his song to Gutenberg that  the tune would “never do to sacred words,” and “there must be a national and merry subject found out, something to which the soldier-like and boxom motion of the piece has some relation.”

Mendelssohn would go on to “rediscover” Bach and was the first to perform his Mass in B Minor in over 100 years. He also popularized Beethoven’s Masses.

But it wasn’t until 1855 that William Hayman Cummings decided to combine the two—and just like that genius at Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, we’ve had this undeniably fantastic combination ever since.

I’m partial to the recording by the King’s Choir Cambridge, the horns! The 3rd stanza with beautiful jarring chromatic notes and a descant to die for…. All that means: it’s really pretty.

But it can be done simply- how about plunked out on the piano by Janie Bailey as everyone comes to the Bailey house to save George? Of course, I’m going to say the Amy Grant version from the 80s. Both versions of the Charlie Brown soundtrack with kids’ voices and without. And crank it up on the stereo. The neighbors won’t mind. Merry Christmas from me, your Holly Jolly almanac host to you and yours.

 

The last word for today is from Wesley with help from Whitfield and as printed in the first hymnal after it was paired with its now familiar tune: 

1 Hark! the herald angels sing,

“Glory to the new-born King!

Peace on earth, and mercy mild;

God and sinners reconciled!”

 

2 Joyful, all ye nations, rise;

Join the triumph of the skies;

With th' angelic host proclaim,

“Christ is born in Bethlehem!”

 

3 Mild He lays His glory by;

Born that we no more may die;

Born to raise the sons of earth;

Born to give them second birth.

 

4 Hail, the heaven-born Prince of peace!

Hail, the Sun of righteousness!

Light and life to all He brings,

Risen with healing in His wings.

 

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 25th of December 2024, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by  Chris- Kringle Gillespie.

The show is written and read by Ding Dan Merrily on High van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.