The Canadian Hymnal CBWIII has some nice stuff in their choir edition, if you can get your hands on a copy. The choir edition also includes the Willcocks accompaniments and descants to many Christmas carols. Of course the texts won't match and the accompaniments won't match most American editions... so you'll have to double-book sing or pencil in stuff.

P.S. Here's a sample PDF from the Oxford Book of Descants:

Very cool, Adam! If I ever let my tenor (my 21 year old) loose, things could get pretty interesting---something like a cross between Andy Williams, Andrea Bocelli and Tom Jones.

Some of the ones here are good:
http://whitmill.net/descants/

No Three Kings.

Sorry, I've been trying to point to this but it apparently redirects unless you go through the actual website. Kinda annoying. Look for the PDF.

I tend to use things from the following books:

Carols for Choirs (OUP)
Christmas at King's College (Novello)
Hymbook 1982
Hymnal of the Anglican Church in Canada
CPDL - some nice things there, and they're FREE!
Hymnary.org - they're Free, too.
And a collection of descants by Ted Marier, the name of which I can't think of.
Sometimes, it can work just singing/playing the Alto or Tenor part in the upper octave.

Mary Ann,

You should write the Church of the Holy Childhood in St. Paul, MN for copies of some of their descants. They have beautiful descants, some written by their founding director.

@MaryAnn Carr Wilson. I've never been able to find any descants to "We Three Kings"; they seem hard to come by. I wrote a simple one years ago, but didn't score it. If you haven't got one as yet I could do it for you; it's only the chorus as I think the descant would work best for the chorus and not the verses.

Eons ago (or yesterday, by Melo and W's counting) I wrote out my own set of descants, cross referencing Worship III and Hymnal 1982. I don't know if I still have the collection, since I was recently going through files and destroying stuff to make room for other stuff. (These never existed in electronic form.) I'll have a look if anyone's interested. As I recall, they included one for Veni Emmanuel and St. Flavian.

OCP's descant catalogue is serviceable. They're quite dated now, first appearing in the 80's in little pamphlet volumes, and then in Choral Praise.

...We Three Kings...needs or wants a descant...

Humph!
I don't think that it needs even to be sung, whether it wants to be or not.
As for a descant?
That would only make it worse!

I am trying now to remember the name of the noted Anglican choral musician who held We Three Kings in high regard. (Not talking Rutter here.) I remember the fact of that because it was not something I expected. As Christmas carols go, it's better than Silent Night so, there you have it.

Indeed it is and not just now. Has a somewhat higher/deeper theological content, reasonable voice leading (with no awkward leaps of a minor seventh that cause nasty congregational vocal cauliflowers, and fewer ugly swooping opportunities), and a teleological progression of verses. On the minus side, its 6/8 meter (a true 6/8 rather than gigue in 2) seems to be meant to evoke a caravan, but while not cheesy it's not what Borodin achieved in On The Steppes of Central Asia.

However, if available, I'll take Stille Nacht on guitar or no accompaniment with a small schola for $500. It's rarely on offer. Instead, it's butchered as its bellowed. (We butcher as we bellow right here in the church...)

PS: I will now implead my annual pre-Christmas plea regarding another beloved holiday chestnut: Cantique de Noël should be sung only in the original French, and the terribly treacly English paraphrase (if it can be justly called a paraphrase) should be mothballed if it cannot be put down for mercy's sake. The English text cannot hold a candle to the French.

We Three Kings is not a Christmas carol.
It is an Epiphany song. And not a liturgical one, either.

Adam

Not quite. It's about the journey from the Nativity to Epiphany - and beyond to the Paschal Mystery (and, impliedly, the journey of our lives to Christ, an eschatological telos). It's not an Epiphany snapshot. It's no sublime masterwork, but it's not mere holiday treacle.

While my family did not have this practice, I know families did: the practice of the moving the figures of the Magi (and camels if part of the set) through different rooms or chambers of their home over the course of Christmastide, ending up on the eve or morning of Epiphany at the creche. The song has that sense to it.

.

I'm impressed, Liam, with the skillful literary embroidery by which you would woo from us some measure of esteem for this Epiphany pageant doggerel and its, um, amusing tune. Most impressive! Ah, if only the song itself were as convincing (and spiritually fervent) as your lovely argument. (Maybe I should give it another hearing and hear it through your ears.)

@ghmus7 Yes, one can use the tenor part, or even the alto part an octave higher, or a hybrid of both as a launch pad to create a descant; I've done it.

Salieri -
In reply to your e-mail:
Not in response to your !, but your other assessments of WTKs.
No sarcasm.
Just innocent bantering in respectful fun.
In fact, I just noticed that I was addressing Liam's defense of WTKs, not yours - and have edited my comment accordingly.

Speaking of King's, There is a new book "Hymns from King's", with arr. by Stephen Cleobury. It is published by Edition Peters. There is also a companion CD published by the College (available on the King's website).

Here is NICEA.

The last verse is scored for SATB and Organ with the tune in the Tenor (Soprano descant), the last strain divides the Sopranos, Tenors (tune in Tenor II) and Basses -- SSATTBB with Organ.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umAywTDFve8