The story behind Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
Charles Wesley wrote the hymn in 1739, in the collection Hymns and Sacred Poems, and his first line was not the one choirs shout now. He wrote Hark, how all the welkin rings, glory to the King of kings. Welkin is an old word for the vault of heaven. The picture is the whole sky sounding, not yet a choir of herald angels with a familiar label. Wesley was telling the Nativity from Luke, the angelic praise at Bethlehem, in the compressed, doctrinal style of his best hymns. He wanted the words sung to a serious tune. He did not want a melody that felt like a dance.
George Whitefield, the evangelist and Wesley's colleague in the Methodist revival, printed a revision in 1753 that begins Hark! the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn King. That is the line the world kept. Later editors, including Martin Madan, altered other phrases. The three stanzas common today are a composite, not a photograph of Wesley's 1739 page. More than a century after the poem, William Hayman Cummings, an organist, fitted the text to a chorus from Felix Mendelssohn's Festgesang of 1840. Cummings made the pairing in 1855. Both Wesley and Mendelssohn had doubts about this kind of marriage. Congregations ignored the doubts and kept the song.
History and origins
Wesley's original hymn was longer than the three verses in a typical carol sheet. He stacks titles on the child: Prince of Peace, Sun of Righteousness, incarnate Deity, Emmanuel. He includes the virgin birth, the reconciling of God and sinners, and the second birth of believers. This is preaching in meter. The 1739 book places it among hymns for the Nativity. Whitefield's change to herald angels sing was pastoral and practical. Welkin had already become a hard word, and a line about angels matched the story in Luke more obviously for a crowd. Whether Wesley liked the change is a separate question. The text that spread was the revised one.
Mendelssohn's music has a civic birthday. In 1840 he wrote Festgesang zur Gutenbergfeier, a festival piece for the four hundredth anniversary of Johannes Gutenberg's printing press, performed in Leipzig. The second chorus, a sturdy male voice tune in praise of Gutenberg and of light, is the passage Cummings later borrowed. Mendelssohn was pleased to think the music might serve other secular words. He did not think it suited sacred ones. A dance like lift in the rhythm, and the occasional, public character of the commission, argued against the church in his mind. Cummings, who had sung as a boy under Mendelssohn's baton in Elijah, was not persuaded. In 1855 he made the adaptation, associated with Waltham Abbey, and published the union that hymnals still call Mendelssohn.
The irony is the point of the history. Wesley feared a tune too light for his doctrine. Mendelssohn feared sacred words on this particular chorus. The English speaking church chose the light tune and the sacred words together, and the result became one of the hymns people mean when they say Christmas sounds like itself. Cummings did real editorial work. He shaped the phrases so that Glory to the newborn King could repeat as a refrain after the eight line stanza. That refrain is not a small tweak. It gives a congregation a line to seize. By the later nineteenth century the hymn was fixed in Anglican and Methodist books and had crossed to American ones.
In the twentieth century David Willcocks, director of music at King's College, Cambridge, wrote a descant and a last verse reharmonization that many British choirs treat as part of the carol. It appeared with other descants in Carols for Choirs. The sopranos rise over Wesley's last stanza while the organ moves under them. That sound is now as expected, in some buildings, as Whitefield's first line. It is still an addition. A parish with one piano can sing Cummings's adaptation without the descant and be singing the real hymn. The words about the virgin's womb, the Godhead veiled in flesh, and healing in his wings are Wesley's theology, however grand the organ becomes.
Other tunes have been tried, including the Easter hymn tune Wesley himself had in mind for a related text. None of them displaced Mendelssohn after the 1850s. The Gutenberg chorus turned out to be sturdy enough for outdoor carols, brass, and a packed nave. History did not obey the two famous men. It obeyed singability. A fair performance note is to remember both objections and then sing anyway, with the doctrine left intact. Dropping the middle stanza to save time removes the incarnate Deity and leaves a vaguer joy. Wesley would have noticed even if he lost the argument about the tune.
Full lyrics
Verse 1
Hark! the herald angels sing,
Glory to the newborn King.
Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled.
Joyful, all ye nations, rise.
Join the triumph of the skies.
With the angelic host proclaim,
Christ is born in Bethlehem.
Hark! the herald angels sing,
Glory to the newborn King.
Verse 2
Christ, by highest heaven adored,
Christ, the everlasting Lord,
Late in time behold him come,
Offspring of a virgin's womb.
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see.
Hail the incarnate Deity,
Pleased as man with man to dwell,
Jesus, our Emmanuel.
Hark! the herald angels sing,
Glory to the newborn King.
Verse 3
Hail the heaven born Prince of Peace.
Hail the Sun of Righteousness.
Light and life to all he brings,
Risen with healing in his wings.
Mild he lays his glory by,
Born that man no more may die,
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.
Hark! the herald angels sing,
Glory to the newborn King.
The text above follows a standard public domain version. Singers will meet small changes from book to book, especially in folk carols.
Lyrics presented for educational and personal use. Sing along responsibly this holiday season!
Meaning and symbolism
The hymn is a short course in the meaning of the birth. Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled: the first stanza says what the child is for, not only that angels are loud. The second stanza presses the paradox. The everlasting Lord comes late in time, offspring of a virgin, Godhead veiled in flesh, pleased as man with us to dwell. Emmanuel, God with us, is the name the refrain can bear. This is why the carol feels heavier than its bounce. The melody smiles. The nouns are immense.
The third stanza turns to what the birth does. The Sun of Righteousness rises with healing, a phrase Wesley takes from the prophet Malachi. Christ lays his glory by, is born so that people may not die, raises the sons of earth, and gives them second birth. The herald angels are not the subject by the end. The newborn King is. Whitefield's opening gets the singer's attention. Wesley's titles do the teaching. A congregation that memorizes only Hark! the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn King, still has the announcement. The stanzas tell them who the King is.
Fun facts and statistics
- Charles Wesley published Hark, how all the welkin rings in Hymns and Sacred Poems in 1739.
- Welkin means the vault of heaven.
- George Whitefield's 1753 version supplied the familiar opening, Hark! the herald angels sing.
- Felix Mendelssohn wrote the source music in 1840 for the Gutenberg festival in Leipzig, and he did not intend it for sacred words.
- William Hayman Cummings paired the hymn and the tune in 1855.
- Wesley had wanted a more serious tune, not a dance like one. Common use ignored both men's preferences.
- A descant by David Willcocks, published in Carols for Choirs, is now standard in many British choir performances.
Top 5 most popular renditions
Nat King Cole
1960
Nat King Cole recorded Hark! The Herald Angels Sing for The Magic of Christmas in 1960, with Ralph Carmichael arranging and conducting. Cole sings the Wesley text with a clear, unhurried line while choir and orchestra take Cummings's tune at a festive pace. The refrain Glory to the newborn King arrives as a real chorus, not as an afterthought. On an album of hymns, the track keeps the piece in sacred company rather than in a comedy medley. Carmichael's Hollywood scoring adds shine without replacing the melody Mendelssohn wrote for Leipzig. Cole's diction lets reconciled and Emmanuel land as words, which is the test of this particular carol.
Nat King Cole
Frank Sinatra
1957
Frank Sinatra included Hark! The Herald Angels Sing on A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra in 1957, in Gordon Jenkins's arrangement. The performance is warm and mainstream, a popular baritone with orchestra and chorus treating a Methodist hymn as Christmas repertoire. Sinatra does not sermonize. He sings the herald line as a greeting and lets the arrangement carry the lift Cummings found in Mendelssohn. The album also holds quieter carols, so this track supplies the bright public praise. Hearing a nightclub singer on Whitefield's opening shows how far the 1855 pairing had traveled from Waltham Abbey into American seasonal pop, without losing the newborn King.
Frank Sinatra
Eugene Ormandy
1962
Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra open The Glorious Sound of Christmas, recorded in 1962 with the Temple University Concert Choir, with Hark! The Herald Angels Sing. The placement is a statement. This is festival music, and the Gutenberg chorus can bear Philadelphia brass. The choir sings the congregational hymn at orchestral scale, so peace on earth and the refrain have room to bloom. Arthur Harris's arrangement keeps the tune recognizable in the first bars. The recording is the opposite of a parlor reduction and a fair picture of how the piece behaves when a city turns out for Christmas. Wesley's dense theology is still in the text if the choir does not swallow it.
Eugene Ormandy
Julie Andrews
1975
Julie Andrews recorded Hark! The Herald Angels Sing on her 1975 album The Secret of Christmas, with Ian Fraser arranging and conducting. Her classical musical theater diction is well suited to Wesley's piled titles, because every consonant in herald, mercy, and reconciled can be heard. The performance is straightforward rather than ironic, a singer who trusts the hymn. Fraser's setting supports the refrain without turning it into a march that erases the line about God and sinners. Andrews's album is full of traditional carols, and this track is the bright doctrinal one. It shows the hymn working as a solo with choir colors, not only as a congregation's opening shout.
Julie Andrews
Robert Shaw Chorale
1946
The Robert Shaw Chorale recorded Hark! The Herald Angels Sing in the New York sessions of December 1945 and June 1946 that became the 1947 album Christmas Hymns and Carols. Shaw's standard was intelligible words and balanced parts, and this hymn rewards both. The refrain can be loud without the inner voices blurring the stanza about Bethlehem. Placing the piece in a serious carol album, beside other doctrinal hymns, resisted the temptation to use Mendelssohn's tune as a mere jingle. The recording is a mid century American choral benchmark. Cummings's adaptation is sung as church music that happens to be thrilling, which is close to the bargain the English church made in 1855.
Robert Shaw Chorale
Sheet music
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Notes for singers
If you place Hark! The Herald Angels Sing in a December service, a school program, or a living room sing, teach Mendelssohn before you add harmony. A confident melody lets guests enter on the refrain. Say the names when you introduce it. The words are credited to Charles Wesley, and the music to Felix Mendelssohn. The year to remember is 1739, and the place to name is England.
This sits in the library as a hymn. Let that tradition set the tempo. A lullaby loses its point if it is hurried. A dance carol loses its point if every syllable is precious. Leave a breath at the end of the verse so the next line feels chosen rather than chased.
Charles Wesley published Hark, how all the welkin rings in Hymns and Sacred Poems in 1739. Hold that fact in the introduction you speak, not only in a program note. Welkin means the vault of heaven. Those two details give a listener a reason to hear the song as a made thing, not as wallpaper.
When the group is small, one voice can carry the verse and everyone can take the refrain. When the group is a choir, decide in advance whether you are telling a story or painting a picture. Story songs want clear words. Picture songs can bloom. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing will tell you which it is after a single unaccompanied read through.
Questions readers ask
In 1739 he wrote Hark, how all the welkin rings, glory to the King of kings. Welkin means the sky or the vault of heaven. George Whitefield changed the opening in 1753 to Hark! the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn King. Other editors touched later lines. The hymn people sing is a revised composite that still carries Wesley's teaching about reconciliation, the virgin birth, and the second birth, even though the famous shout is Whitefield's.
The tune comes from his Festgesang of 1840, written in Leipzig for the four hundredth anniversary of Gutenberg's press. He thought the chorus could take other secular words and said it should not be used for sacred ones. William Hayman Cummings adapted it to Wesley's hymn in 1855 anyway. The church kept the pairing because it sings well. The objection is part of the history, not a reason to pretend Handel or anyone else wrote this particular melody.
Wesley wanted a serious hymn tune, not something that felt like a dance, and he had pointed some of his verse toward the kind of melody used for Christ the Lord Is Risen Today. He did not live to hear Cummings's adaptation. The buoyant Mendelssohn rhythm is exactly the sort of lift he had resisted. Congregations decided the doctrine could survive a festive tune. Most singers today would not trade the 1855 melody away, but they should know Wesley lost that argument.
David Willcocks, who directed the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, wrote a soprano descant and a richer organ harmony for the last verse. It circulated in Carols for Choirs and became the sound many British listeners expect on the final Hark. It is an arrangement, not part of Cummings's 1855 publication and not part of Wesley's text. A congregation can sing the hymn completely without it. Choirs that use it usually save it for the last stanza so the first verses stay easy to join.
Why this song endures
The hymn lasts because the opening command is unforgettable and because the tune lifts a crowd. Hark is a word that still works as a shout even for people who never say it on a Tuesday. Cummings's refrain gives every voice a job. Mendelssohn's phrases are balanced and public, which is what a festival piece should be, even if the festival he had in mind was a printer's anniversary. The mismatch between origin and use became a good story rather than a flaw. People enjoy knowing that the composer resisted sacred words, and then they sing them anyway.
It also lasts because Wesley's doctrine is packed tight enough to survive fame. Many Christmas songs offer one image. This one offers reconciliation, incarnation, light, healing, and new birth in three stanzas. Churches that want those claims in the mouths of children have a better vehicle here than in a sentimental lyric they must explain away. The welkin line is a treasure for historians and a reminder that even classic hymns are edited. The line we sing is Whitefield's. The teaching is still Wesley's. The tune is Mendelssohn's civic chorus, redirected in 1855 by Cummings and still redirecting December.