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If you noticed blunt omissions, mis-interpretations or even out-and-out errors,
please let me know:
Arnold Rypens
Rozenlaan 65
B-2840 Reet (Rumst)
Artist: Emile Berliner
Author: Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy/Charles Wesley
Label: Berliner Grammophon
Year: 1889
On a 5 inch in a talking toy. Christmas classic. Ds. Charles Wesley, brother of John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church, published the lyrics in Hymns And Sacred Poems (London, 1739) as Hark, How All The Welkin Rings, Hymn For Christmas Day, adapted in 1753 by George Whitefield. Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy composed the melody (for secular use only) to commemorate 400 years of typography (in 1840) as Vaterland, in deinen Gauen, second movement of his cantata Festgesang an die Künstler. First publication of words and music combined in 1855 by Dr. W.H. Cummings, English school head and organist.
Covers:
Westminster Choir [for Edison Bell]
Henry Burr [reissued on VA-cd Voices Of Christmas Past (see also: Jingle Bells)]
Bee Gees [shelved; released on cd re-issue of the Horizontal album]
Thijs van Leer [with Rogier van Otterloo and Louis van Dijk]
Toten Hosen [under alias Roten Rosen on a christmas album]
Luther Dickinson [on An Americana Christmas]
If you noticed blunt omissions, mis-interpretations or even out-and-out errors,
please let me know:
Arnold Rypens
Rozenlaan 65
B-2840 Reet (Rumst)