VIDEO: Carols of Christmas - Part II
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Jim Daly Jim Daly is president and chief executive officer of Focus on the Family, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping families thrive.
- Published Dec 21, 2011
History isn’t just dry dates and statistics. History is human. History can be a great source of strength and affirmation, an aide to navigation, especially in dark and dangerous times. And the words and music we love that have stood the test of time mean still more when we know their story.
- David McCullough, American historian and author
ANGELS FROM THE REALMS OF GLORY
There is considerable disagreement among experts concerning this carol. Several give it as a loose translation or paraphrase of an 18th century French noel, Les Anges dans nos Campanges (including both Elizabeth Poston and William Studwell). The editors of The Oxford Book of Carols merely note the similarity between the first lines of the two texts, but don't actually claim a connection. The editors of The New Oxford Book of Carols seem to give credit entirely to Montgomery, as does Ian Bradley in The Penguin Book of Carols and Erik Routley in The English Carol.
However, James Montgomery's poem first appeared on December 24, 1816 as a five-stanza poem under the title of "Nativity" in his newspaper, The Sheffield Iris. Its first appearance in a hymnal was in Thomas Cotterill's Selection of Psalms and Hymns, 1819.
In 1825 it was printed in the Religious Tract Society's book The Christmas Box, as one of "Three New Carols."
Montgomery revised it several times for publication in his Christian Psalmist, 1825, (under the new title of "Good tidings of great joy to all people") and Original Hymns, 1853.
The poem was joined in 1867 to the tune "Regent Square" by Henry Thomas Smart (1813-1879) who was blinded in 1865. The tune got its name from London's Regent Square Presbyterian Church. It was later published in the English Presbyterian hymnal Psalms and Hymns for Divine Worship, 1867.
It is considered both a Christmas and Epiphany carol.