Popular Christmas Carols

In 1719 most of the songs sung in European church services were the Psalms from the Old Testament. Isaac Watts enjoyed Bible readings but felt that these songs did not translate well into modern-day English. Watts was 15 years old, and after one Sunday service, he expressed his thoughts. One of the deacons who heard his complaints about the songs that the congregation sang told him to go home and write something better. So Watts went home and wrote his first hymn, and this began his love of writing hymns, with "Joy to the World" being his first one. This hymn is the "imitation" of the last half of Psalm 98. Today it is a popular song sung at Christmas.

"Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" by Charles Wesley was originally written as a poem to recite on Christmas Day, but it was a different version from the one sung today. The original had ten four-line verses and instead of singing "Glory to the newborn king" the original words were "Glory to the King of Kings." George Whitefield, who was a student of Wesley's, changed the line as well as eliminating other verses that are no longer sung today and made some verses longer. Felix Mendelssohn later added music to this hymn.

The original text of "Adeste Fidelia" is in Latin but is not considered to be an ancient chant. The carol first appeared when John Francis Wade, an English music teacher, created lovely calligraphic copies of the chant to use in foreign embassy chapels in London. It was included in Wade's "Cantus Diversi pro Dominica et Festis per annum" however, it is not known if he was the author of the carol or just copied it. "Adeste Fidelia" appeared in "An Essay of the Church Plain Chant" as an anonymous publication attributed to Wade. The familiar English translation "O Come All Ye Faithful" was made by the priest and author Frederick Oakeley, who served as Canon of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Westminster.

"O Come, O Come Emmanuel" is a lovely hymn sung on Christmas, but the original writer remains unknown. An Anglican priest John Mason Neale was reading a book of poetry and psalms in the 19th century when he discovered the anonymous Latin poem that came with music accompaniment. Knowing 20 languages, including Latin Neale, could translate the song into English. He made his home in the Madiera Islands near Africa where he had established an orphanage, a school for girls, and a ministry to reclaim prostitutes. He played the hymn he had found and translated for the people he served who were the lowest of society. The hymn became well-known and is still played and sung at Christmastime today.

In 1818 Josef Mohr was the pastor of the Church of St, Nicholas in Obendorf, a village near Salzburg, Austria. After a Christmas play on the 23rd of December Mohr took the long way home and went up a hill that overlooked the village. Looking down over Obendorf, enjoying the silence of the winter night and thinking about the Christmas play he had just seen he remembered a poem he had written a couple of years before. He felt that the words he had written might make a good carol for his congregation at the Christmas Eve service.

The following day he went to the church organist, Franz Gruber, and asked him to compose a melody for a guitar. When the congregation gathered on Christmas Eve, they heard the song from Gruber and Mohr. Soon this carol called "Silent Night" spread across northern Europe and in 1834 it was performed for King Frederick William IV of Prussia who ordered his cathedral choir to sing it every Christmas Eve. Twenty years after "Silent Night" had been written it was brought to the U.S. and sung in Trinity Church in New York City. The hymn has been translated and is now sung in more than 300 different languages all over the world.

In 1847 a parish priest in a small French town commissioned a local poet and wine commissionaire, Placide Cappeau to write a poem for the Christmas Eve mass. Cappeau read about the birth of Christ in the Gospel of Luke on his way to Paris and finished the poem "O Holy Night" by the time he reached the city. He asked his friend Adolphe Charles Adams to compose the music and the song was sung in the village on Christmas Eve. In French the song "Cantique de Noel" was loved by the church in France but when the leaders found out that Cappeau was a socialist and Adams of Jewish faith they denounced the song as unfit for church services. However, the ordinary French people continued to sing it.

"O Holy Night" was brought to the U.S. by John Sullivan Dwight, an abolitionist during the Civil War. Touched by the line in the third verse, "Chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother, and in His Name, all oppression shall cease," he published the song in his magazine, and it became popular in the north during the war.

Even though the song was banned in France, the people still loved it. On Christmas Eve in 1871 during heavy fighting between France and Germany during the France-Prussian War, an unarmed French soldier climbed out of the trenches, walked onto the battlefield, and began singing the first line of "O Holy Night" in French. When the soldier had finished singing all three verses, a German soldier came out of the trenches and started singing a famous hymn by Matin Luther in German. At this time all fighting stopped for 24 hours to honor Christmas Day. Shortly afterwards the French church once again accepted "O Holy Night" as a song to be sung at Christmas.

Supposedly "The First Nowell" originated as a Cornish gallery carol. During the 18th century, many small country churches in England had no organs. Amateur choirs led singing from the gallery or balcony. The choirs were often accompanied by a small band that included a bass instrument and at times string and wind instruments.

"The First Nowell" was published in 1823 in a collection of carols from the West Country, "Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern" by Willam Sandys. The hymn has a lovely melody composed by eminent Victorian English church musician, composer, and musicologist, Sir John Stainer.

Interestingly, neither the text nor the music of "Tannenbaum" started as a song associated with Christmas. Tannenbaum means "fir tree" not "Christmas tree." In 1820 a preacher and folk music collector, August Zarnack published a love song titled "O Tannenbaum" in which the fir tree is contrasted with a faithless lover. His poem was set to the music of the German folk tune associated with the carol, first published in 1799.

At this time the custom of evergreen trees used as Christmas trees was becoming popular in Germany. A schoolmaster and organist, Ernst Anschutz borrowed the first verse of the love song by Zarnack and added two verses of his own. Today "O Tannenbaum" or "Oh Christmas Tree" remains one of the most sung and popular Christmas carols. The melody is used for several American state songs and college Alma Maters.