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Spiritual songs >The Hymnal Project > Nativity

This is the first of the Christmas carols and hymns we will look at.

Current version

Here is the version in the Byzantine Catholic Hymnal (2007):

Angels from heaven

The English translation is by Monsignor William Levkulic.

See this article for the Slavonic.

Discussion

It sometimes looks at first glance like our Christmas hymns fall into two categories: the picturesque (angels, shepherds) and the theological (God from all eternity, born a mortal for our salvation). But in actuality most of our songs combine these two, and this one is no exception.

I don't see any problems with either text or melody. I have fixed some capitalization issues in the Byzantine Catholic Hymnal version. (By custom, when hymns are written out, the first word of each line is capitalized, but when the lines of music don't follow the lines of the printed hymn, you can end up with capital letters in the middle of a sentence.)

Because the Slavonic follows the English somewhat closely, I don't see any need to include an English translation with the Slavonic.

Harmonization

Here is the harmonization of the Slavonic version, from page 107 of Professor George Kacan's Kolady (1958):

The melody is slightly different from our usual one, but I will go ahead and set the English in this fashion shortly.

In the meantime, does anyone know which collection of music he may be referring to with the notation "E17" in the upper right?

Also - Kacan wrote out his version in half notes and quarter notes, with the tempo marked as "Allegretto" (quickly). Any strong feelings on whether this is preferable to quarter and eighth notes?

Thoughts or suggestions?

Please leave a comment on this blog entry: Four Christmas Songs.