Babe Of Bethlehem: A Song History

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"The Babe of Bethlehem" appears with its tune in the 1835 edition of William Walker's The Southern Harmony, and Musical Companion, printed in New Haven and sold from Spartanburg, South Carolina; the carol sits on page 78, with the music credited to "Wm. Walker."[1] The Choral Public Domain Library's edition dates its first publication to that book and records that Walker set it in three parts, for treble, tenor and bass, with eight stanzas of words.[2] Later editions of The Southern Harmony kept it, including the 1854 edition, which Hymnary.org indexes as no. 78.[3]

Engraving of an angel appearing to shepherds, framed by an ornamental border of fruit, flowers and birds

Abraham de Bruyn, The Annunciation to the Shepherds, engraving, 1580–1600. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0).

The author of the words is unknown, and sources differ on where they first appeared: the Choral Public Domain Library has them first appearing in Walker's book.[2] Hymnary.org, however, lists the text, which opens with a call to all nations, with a slightly different first line in a Disciples of Christ hymnal, The Christian Hymn-Book, printed in Cincinnati in 1815, and in A Selection of Christian Hymns of 1818, neither of which names a writer.[4][5][6] The same index records the text in sixteen hymnals in all, among them John B. Jackson's Knoxville Harmony, published in Madisonville, Tennessee, in 1838.[7][8] Walker's tune turns up again in a 1914 collection, The Good Old Songs, still credited to him.[9]

The Worshipbook of 1972 printed the carol in a harmonization by John Powell, taken from his Twelve Folk Hymns of 1934, and labeled the words a traditional carol.[10] The Christmas Revels recorded it with chorus, brass and tympani at Sanders Theater, Harvard University, in 1982 for Wassail! Wassail!, whose notes add that Revels stagings pair it with a Morris-style dance.[11] The same notes describe it as an old folk carol carried to America and preserved by ear, a claim the sources consulted here do not document further.[11]

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Sources

  1. Internet Archive (Oberlin College Library): "The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion" (William Walker, 1835).
  2. Choral Public Domain Library: "The Babe of Bethlehem (William Walker)".
  3. Hymnary.org: "Ye nations all, on you I call" (The Southern Harmony, and Musical Companion, new ed., no. 78).
  4. Hymnary.org: "The Christian Hymn-Book (Corr. and Enl., 3rd. ed.)".
  5. Hymnary.org: "Ye nations all, to you I call" (The Christian Hymn-Book, 1815, no. 97).
  6. Hymnary.org: "Ye nations all, to you I call" (A Selection of Christian Hymns, 1818, no. 321).
  7. Hymnary.org: "Ye nations all, on you I call".
  8. Hymnary.org: "The Knoxville Harmony of Music Made Easy".
  9. Hymnary.org: "Ye Christians all, on you I call" (The Good Old Songs, 1914, no. 97).
  10. Hymnary.org: "To Abraham the Promise Came" (The Worshipbook, 1972, no. 608).
  11. Internet Archive: "Wassail! Wassail! Early American Christmas Music" (The Christmas Revels, Revels Records).