Our opening hymn — “While shepherds watched their flocks by night” — has in our Hymnal two options for tunes, WINCHESTER OLD and CAROL. As it happens, there are hundreds of tunes to which these
Our opening hymn — “While shepherds watched their flocks by night” — has in our Hymnal two options for tunes, WINCHESTER OLD and CAROL. As it happens, there are hundreds of tunes to which these words have been sung. One reason for this proliferation of melodies is the fact that for most of the eighteenth century, this was the only Christmas hymn approved for singing in the Church of England, a story which you can read more about here. And on this page, you can sample some of the other tunes to which this popular Christmas hymn has been sung.
The text first appeared in the supplement to the New Version of the Psalms by Dr. Brady and Mr. Tate (1708 edition). Nicholas Brady was an Anglican priest and poet, Nahum Tate an Irish poet from a family of Puritan clerics who became England’s poet laureate in 1692. Their collaboration on metrical paraphrases of the psalms had a huge influence on English-language hymnody. Like their Psalm paraphrases, “While shepherds watched,” is a straightforward metrical paraphrase of the Gospel account of the angels appearance to the shepherds (St. Luke 2:8-20).
Our sermon hymn is “I know a rose tree springing.” The text is one of a number of English translations of the folk carol Es ist ein Roess entsprungen. Both text and tune are believed to have originated in the diocese of Trier in the fifteenth or early sixteenth century. In some versions of the carol, there are 23 stanzas, narrating the events of the Annunciation, the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth, the Nativity (including shepherds and angels), and the coming of the magi.
The New Oxford Book of Carols explains: “In medieval iconography, the tree of Jesse is often depicted as a rose plant. The messianic prophecy of Isaiah 12 declared that ‘There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of its roots.’ Allowing for the characteristic mirror-imaging of Hebrew verse, this means that a rod/branch (the Virgin Mary) will grow from the stem/root of Jesse (father of King David and patriarch of Christ’s genealogy in popular medieval form) and will bear a ‘little flower’ (the Christ-child).”
During the Offertory, the Messianic imagery shifts from roses to apples, as the choir sings an arrangement of “Jesus Christ the Apple Tree” by Elizabeth Poston (1905-1987). The poem on which this anthem is based was first published in 1761 in the in London-based Spiritual Magazine, and was probably the work of the Rev. Richard Hutchins, a Calvinist Baptist clergyman from Northhamptonshire. The imagery of the poem is taken from Song of Songs 2:3: “As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.”
The original poem had seven stanzas, two of which (in italics below) are omitted in Poston’s setting:
The tree of life my soul hath seen,
Laden with fruit, and always green;
The trees of nature fruitless be,
Compar’d with Christ the Appletree.
This beauty doth all things excel,
By faith I know, but ne’er can tell
The glory which I now can see,
In Jesus Christ the Appletree.
For happiness I long have sought,
And pleasure dearly I have bought;
I miss’d of all; but now I see
‘Tis found in Christ the Appletree.
I’m weary’d with my former toil—
Here I will sit and rest awhile,
Under the shadow I will be,
Of Jesus Christ the Appletree.
With great delight I’ll make my stay,
There’s none shall fright my soul away;
Among the sons of men I see
There’s none like Christ the Appletree.
I’ll sit and eat this fruit divine,
It cheers my heart like spirit’al wine;
And now this fruit is sweet to me,
That grows on Christ the Appletree.
This fruit doth make my soul to thrive,
It keeps my dying faith alive;
Which makes my soul in haste to be
With Jesus Christ the Appletree.
Here are the Cambridge Singers, conducted by John Rutter, singing “Jesus Christ the Appletree.”
December 28th is the day in which we commemorate the Holy Innocents, those children slain by Herod in his effort to eliminate the threat of the prophesied Messiah. In recognition of that event, during Communion the choir sings the “Coventry Carol.” This familiar carol gets its name from its origin in one of the medieval mystery plays performed in Coventry eve