love to sing while shepherds watched their flocks by night

^ a b While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks – Sandys.^ Also known as 'Whilst shepherds watched their flocks' or 'The Vision of the Shepherds ( ref).'Sweet Chiming Bells' is an alternative folk version, commonly sung in South Yorkshire and Derbyshire, which uses the verses of the hymn but adds a new refrain.

In the towns of villages in the Pennines of West Yorkshire such as Todmorden, 'Shaw Lane' is used. Another tune traditionally used for it in Cornwall is 'Northrop'. In Cornwall, the carol is popularly sung to 'Lyngham', a tune usually associated with ' O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing'. A note in The English Hymnal mentions 'University' and 'Crowle' as tunes to which is occasionally sung. Called 'Jackson's Tune,' it remains popular in Oldham. Robert Jackson, parish organist at All Saints‘ Church, Oldham, Lancashire, wrote a tune to 'While shepherds watched their flocks by night' in 1903 for the Westwood Moravian Church there. Hudson from around 1885, and 'Shackelford' by Frederick Henry Cheeswright from 1889. It has been set to numerous other tunes, most commonly 'Martyrdom', written by Hugh Wilson in 1800 but with an arrangement by Ralph E. Another popular tune for the hymn from around that time is Old Foster. It was originally set to the words 'Grace 'tis a charming sound' written by Philip Doddridge but is now better known in the UK as the tune of On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at. The hymn tune ' Cranbrook' was written in 1805 by Canterbury shoe-maker Thomas Clark and named after the local village of Cranbrook.

It was set to music in 1812 in Harmonia Sacra. Īmerican composer Daniel Read published his tune 'Sherburne' in 1785, a popular setting that appeared over seventy times in print before 1810 and is still commonly sung by Sacred Harp singers. The Presbyterian Hymnal (1990) and the more recent Glory to God hymnal published in 2013 by the Presbyterian Church (USA) include both the 'Winchester Old' and 'Christmas' versions, while the Episcopal Hymnal 1982 has 'Winchester Old' and an alternate tune, 'Hampton', composed by McNeil Robinson in 1985. The Hymnal Committee of the United Methodist Church, for example, selected 'Christmas' for its current hymnal, published in 1989, after the previous 1966 edition had used 'Winchester Old'. Problems playing this file? See media help.ĭavid Weyman's adaptation of 'Christmas', taken from an aria in the 1728 opera Siroe by George Frideric Handel was arranged by Lowell Mason in 1821, and it is now this version which is most commonly used in the United States. The carol is sung to a wide variety of tunes, the two most common ones being Winchester Old in the United Kingdom and a variation on a Handel aria arranged by Lowell Mason in the United States. It was published by Davies Gilbert (London, 1822), and William B.

It is the only one of the sixteen works in the 1700 supplement to still be sung today. It is written in common metre and based on the Gospel of Luke 2:8–14.

It was the only Christmas hymn authorised to be sung by the Anglican Church before 1700 only the Psalms of David were permitted to be sung. The exact date of Tate's composition is not known, but the words appeared in Tate and Nicholas Brady's 1700 supplement to their New Version of the Psalms of David of 1696. It is listed as number 16898 in the Roud Folk Song Index. ' While shepherds watched their flocks' is a traditional Christmas carol describing the Annunciation to the Shepherds, with words attributed to Irish hymnist, lyricist and England's Poet Laureate Nahum Tate. The latter half was adapted and used as the tune of 'Winchester Old'. The ' meane' of chapter VIII in Christopher Tye's Actes of the Apostles of 1553.

Love to sing while shepherds watched their flocks by night