Product Description
"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.
Wesley had requested and received slow and solemn music for his lyrics,
not the joyful tune expected today. Moreover, Wesley's original opening
couplet is "Hark! how all the welkin rings / Glory to the King of Kings".[1]
The popular version is the result of alterations by various hands,
notably by Wesley's co-worker George Whitefield who changed the opening
couplet to the familiar one, and by Felix Mendelssohn. In 1840, a
hundred years after the publication of
Hymns and Sacred Poems,
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 known today.
This
arrangement, in the saxophone friendly key of F concert, can be preformed with or without the optional acoustic bass and drum set
parts. Both performers and audience members will
enjoy the modern harmonies used in this presentation.
Performance time approx. 2 minutes 6 seconds
This product was created by a member of ArrangeMe, Hal Leonard's global self-publishing community of independent composers, arrangers, and songwriters. ArrangeMe allows for the publication of unique arrangements of both popular titles and original compositions from a wide variety of voices and backgrounds.