Christmas Hymns
  • JazFenn
    Posts: 19
    Would you consider the following hymns to be suitable for the liturgy? Why or why not?

    Away In A Manger

    Night of Silence

    Silent Night

    O Little Town of Bethlehem

    It Came Upon A Midnight Clear

    The Snow Lay On The Ground

    What Child Is This

    In The Bleak Midwinter


  • Diapason84
    Posts: 155
    No to # 2 -- it's contemporary schlock from GIA, and who wants to support them anyway? I have been uncomfortable for some time with # 5 because the text was written by a Unitarian. While the words are OK, there are much better options.
    Thanked by 6JazFenn oldhymns Liam LauraKaz CHGiffen davido
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,676
    My additional opinions, fwiw:

    I personally would not include Away in A Manger in the Mass proper (it's a thin text, more of a devotional than theological text - btw, it's not a text by Luther...), but it can suit a procession of children accompanying the placement of the figure of the baby Jesus in a parish creche. I actively dislike MUELLER as the tune for the text, and prefer CRADLE SONG. (For such a procession, How Far Is It to Bethlehem? would be a stronger text (by Frances Chesterton, wife of G.K.; e.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a84cetrmyBQ)

    If you do What Child Is This, the text with the varying refrains is stronger than the one with unvarying refrain.

    Of course, for choristers, the question will be if you're using the setting by Holst or Darke for In The Bleak Midwinter - the former works better for congregations to sing, while the latter makes for a lovely choral anthem, though the inimitable late Alice Parker's choral anthem arrangement set to the Holst melody is lush in a lucid, non-Rutter way:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTsknFSV-Zk
    Thanked by 2LauraKaz CHGiffen
  • OMagnumMysterium
    Posts: 367
    The only one that I would use immediately adjacent to the Liturgy would be "What Child is This". I'd use it for immediately before or after Mass or the Office, but that is in the context of the EF, where we don't use English hymns during Mass anyway. The rest don't have enough of a serious Liturgical mood for me to even want them next to the Liturgy, but I do like Silent Night for singing at home or various gatherings throughout the festive season (though I often prefer to sing it in German). Some of the other ones could be used as carols too, but I wouldn't miss them if we sang a hundred other carols but left those ones out.

    And like Liam said, What Child is This is better with the unique refrain for each verse.
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen tomjaw
  • Xopheros
    Posts: 149
    In Austria or Germany, it is infeasible to do a Christmas liturgy without "Silent Night".
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,676
    Probably also in most parishes in the USA. It's a thin text IMO, but I know it's not a hill to die on because it is so beloved and carries so many liminal memories for Catholic people. (Away In A Manger can't compare in that regard, by contrast.)
    Thanked by 2OMagnumMysterium LauraKaz
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,676
    Btw, Edmund Sears was not the kind of Unitarian we associate with current and later Unitarianism. I would not program ICUAMC for Mass, but the author while certainly heterodox was not at all a later 20th century Christ-free ethical humanist, as it were:

    https://web.archive.org/web/20150520041039/http://uudb.org/articles/edmundhamiltonsears.html
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,685
    We do Silent Night for the procession at midnight, and I am going to make sure to program everything else that I like in other spots. I plan to do choral carols and chant or polyphony of Advent and Christmas pieces before the Mass so I get more in.
  • oldhymnsoldhymns
    Posts: 277
    My suggestions for hymns for a Christmas liturgy would include the following:

    Silent Night (Catholic version)
    Sleep Holy Babe (several melodies)
    See Amid the Winter's Snow (several melodies)
    Come to the Manger
    With Glory Lit, the Midnight Air Revealed
    Birthday of a King (Recessional)
  • Diapason84
    Posts: 155
    Edmund Sears was not the kind of Unitarian we associate with current and later Unitarianism. I would not program ICUAMC for Mass, but the author while certainly heterodox was not at all a later 20th century Christ-free ethical humanist, as it were:


    In this context that's almost a distinction without a difference, sorry.
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,685
    O Holy Night was also translated by a Unitarian. I fail to see the problems therein.

    It came upon a midnight clear isn’t my favorite, but what exactly is the problem?
    Thanked by 1Liam
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,676
    Well, the very best way to do OHN is to stick to the French original text, which is so much stronger!

    Then again, in Greater Boston upward into northern New England, there are still many people of French Canadian ancestry (mobs of whom emigrated from Quebec to staff mills in the region...) who grew up with the French original at réveillon and Christmas Masses, and cannot abide the English quasi-paraphrase.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mxfmnk7l_pI
    Thanked by 2Andrew_Malton CHGiffen
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,999
    I too lean more to Holst than Darke, but while I'm usually on board with Alice Parker, Liam will perhaps forgive me if I say that arrangement strikes me as gilding-the-lily-by-numbers. We do ITBM straight with a slight reharmonization & descant for the last verse by Ann Callaway.
    Thanked by 3Liam Andrew_Malton CHGiffen
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,676
    Richard

    That's a valid opinion. No need for absolution! To my ear, it still hews closer to the piece than what others might have done to/with it, and I think it's respectful - and it's for a congregational hymn arranged as a choral anthem - because in the USA (even more so in American Catholic parishes) ITBM is not a core part of congregational repertoire, unlike in Great Britain (but it is beloved among many American Catholic choristers...). Whereas, to my ear, Darke's setting is more of a choral anthem from the get-go.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,685
    Liam, right but if not…

    For me the Holst is a choral staple but I’m perhaps more chorister than I previously thought.

    Also, Liam, the funny thing about the Away in a manger tune is that so many older Irish-Americans in New England use a different melody than many Americans who don’t know the one made famous in the U.S. by King’s College.

    Also sorry but I can’t abide ST. LOUIS for O little town of Bethlehem.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,676
    Matthew

    I've rarely heard AIAM in New England Catholic churches (it's so far down the triage list of Catholic parish favorites in my experience*) - so, do you mean a third tune that is neither MUELLER nor CRADLE SONG?

    I share your distaste for ST. LOUIS.

    * My personal mission as a retired chorister turned pewsitter is to preserve Angels We Have Heard On High as a top-tier favorite. And, in my experience, Catholics still know it and sing it lustily, but over the decades I see it creeping down in frequency in programming. I prefer it over HTHAS as a recessional on Christmas night and day - it's specifically evocative of verses 17 and 20 of Luke 2, verses that tend to get ignored in preaching, but speak to the role of the shepherds as proto-evangelists:

    16 And they went with haste, and found Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. 17 And when they saw it they made known the saying which had been told them concerning this child; 18 and all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart. 20 And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.


    [RSV]
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,685
    Yes, and it’s not coming up anywhere that I search. It’s not the Normandy tune though. It was used in American parochial schools.

    We do that one after midnight Mass. I enjoy it. But I would rather do Hark at that point if it was up to me entirely.
    Thanked by 1Liam
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