For comments on Charles Wesley see [Hymn 6].
MUSIC. MENDELSSOHN, also called “Bethlehem” and “St. Vincent,” is from Mendelssohn’s Festgesang for Male Chorus and Orchestra, composed in 1840 to celebrate the invention of printing. The tune is adapted from chorus No. 2 of that work. Dr. W. H. Cummings, organist at Waltham Abbey, set the tune to the words of this hymn and had it sung by the Abbey Choir. It was so well received that he published it in 1856 and it has since found its way into the hymn books of all denominations.
It is interesting to note Mendelssohn’s own estimate of the tune, as he expressed it in a letter to his English publishers.
I am sure that piece will be liked very much by the singers and hearers, but it will never do to sacred words. There must be a national and merry subject found out, something to which the soldier-like and buxom motion of the piece has some relation, and the words must express something gay and popular as the music tries to do.
86. O holy night
The night of the Saviour’s birth is the subject of Christmas carols in every land, of which this and “Silent Night” are outstanding examples. The words are anonymous.
The omitted third stanza reads as follows:
Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall he break for the slave is our brother,