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2 The Times, 2012 Christmas Song Book

Silent Night

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O Christmas Tree

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Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

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Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

Words: Charles Wesley, Hymns and Sacred Poems, 1739.

cantata celebrated the 400th anniversary of Johann Gutenbergs invention of the printing press. This arrangement, by William H. Music: Felix Mendelssohn, in his cantata Festgesang an die Cummings, appeared in the Congregational Hymn and Tune Book, Knstler, 1840 (second movement, Vaterland, in deinem Gauen); the by Richard R. Chope, 1857.

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Joy To The World

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Joy To The World

Words: Isaac Watts, The Psalms of David, 1719.

Music: ANTIOCH, arranged by Lowell Mason, 1836.

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O Come, All Ye Faithfull

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O Come, All Ye Faithfull

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We Three Kings

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Deck The Halls

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Deck The Halls

"Deck the Halls" is a traditional Yuletide and New Years' carol. The "fa-la-la" refrains were probably originally played on the harp. The melody is Welsh and belongs to a winter carol, Nos Galan. In the eighteenth century Mozart used the tune to "Deck the Halls" for a violin and piano duet. But the lyrics we sing now are American in origin and are from 1903. The tune is that of an old Welsh air, first found in a musical manuscript by Welsh harpist John Parry Ddall (c. 17101782), but undoubtedly much older than that. The composition is still popular as a dance tune in Wales, and was published in the 1784 and 1794 editions of the harpist Edward Jones's Musical and Poetical Relics of the Welsh Bards. Poet John Ceiriog Hughes wrote the first published lyrics for the piece in Welsh, titling it "Nos Galan" ("New Year's Eve"). A middle verse was later added by folk singers. In the eighteenth century the tune spread widely, with Mozart using it in a piano and violin concerto and, later, Haydn in the song "New Year's Night."

Originally, carols were dances and not songs. The accompanying tune would have been used as a setting for any verses of appropriate metre. Singers would compete with each other, verse for verse known as canu penillion dull y De ("singing verses in the southern style"). The church actively opposed these folk dances. Consequently, tunes originally used to accompany carols became separated from the original dances, but were still referred to as "carols". The popular English lyrics for this carol are not a translation from the Welsh. The connection with dancing is made explicit in the English lyrics by the phrase "follow me in merry measure" as "measure" is a synonym for dance. A collection of such sixteenth and seventeenth century dances danced at the Inns of Court in London are called the Old Measures. Dancing itself having been previously suppressed by the church was revived during the renaissance beginning in fifteenth century Italy.

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Jingle Bells

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Jingle Bells

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