Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

"Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" is a Christmas carol that first appeared in 1739 in the collection Hymns and Sacred Poems, having been written by Charles Wesley but this is not the version widely known today.

The popular version is the result of alterations by various hands, notably George Whitefield and Felix Mendelssohn. A hundred years after the publication of Hymns and Sacred Poems, in 1840, Mendelssohn composed a cantata to commemorate Johann Gutenberg's invention of the printing press, and it is music from this cantata, adapted by the English musician William H. Cummings to fit the lyrics of "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing", that propels the carol we know. The opening of this arrangement is a brass fanfare as played by the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble.