Originally Aired On: Monday, December 22, 2008
A SPECIAL SERIES ON THE HISTORY OF OUR FAVORITE CHRISTMAS CAROLS
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Monday, December 22, 2008
Christmas Carol: "Angels We Have Heard on High"
Most songs have a single composer, or two writers collaborate—one to write the words and the other to write the tune. But one well-known Christmas carol has one part written very early in church history and the other part written much later in a different part of the country. The carol is "Angels We Have Heard on High."
Back in the Middle Ages in the hills of southern France, shepherds tending their flocks had a custom on Christmas Eve of calling to one another, each from his own hilltop, singing "Glo---ria in excelsis Deo, Glo---ria in excelsis Deo!" Just as angels had made that announcement to shepherds in the fields around Bethlehem two thousand years ago, so a thousand years ago these French shepherds announced again the birth of Christ to one another on Christmas Eve.
Some scholars think that the Gloria was sung by the early church even before Christianity took root in western Europe. It's possible that it was written within 100 years of Christ's birth.
Several hundred years later a popular tune, probably from the 18th century, was married to the words of an old French carol, "Les Anges dans Nos Campagnes" – "The angels in our countryside." We recognize the English words of this carol as "Angels we have heard on high sweetly singing o'er the plains. And the mountains in reply echoing their joyous strains." In 1855 this carol was published with the ancient "Glo---ria in excelsis Deo" attached as the chorus as we sing it today.
Angels we have heard on high
Sweetly singing o'er the plains,
And the mountains in reply
Echoing their joyous strains.
Glo---ria in excelsis Deo!
Glo---ria in excelsis Deo!
Shepherd, why this jubilee?
Why your joyous strains prolong?
What the gladsome tidings be
Which inspire your heav'nly song?
Glo---ria in excelsis Deo!
Glo---ria in excelsis Deo!
Come to Bethlehem and see
Him whose birth the angels sing.
Come adore on bended knee
Christ the Lord, the newborn King.
Glo---ria in excelsis Deo!
Glo---ria in excelsis Deo!