Hark! The Herald Angels Sing is an English Christmas carol which first appears in its modern form in 1850. The original lyrics are adapted from Charles Wesley's 1739 hymn ""Hark! how all the welkin rings", set it to the same tune as Christ the Lord is Risen Today. George Whitefield altered the opening lyrics to the more familiar "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing", and various others also made small alterations in the following years. In the early 1840s, Felix Mendelssohn wrote "Festgesang", a cantata in celebration of the presumed 400 year anniversary of Johannes Gutenberg's invention of the printing press. The tune to the second part of this piece, "Vaterland, in deinen Gauen", was adapted to fit the revised Wesley lyrics in 1855 by William H. Cummings, assembling the hymn tune into its more-or-less final form. It is performed by the chorus of U.S. Army Band "Pershing's Own", led by Colonel Thomas Rotondi, Jr. (Leader & Commander) and CSM Debra L. McGarity (Command Sergeant Major) c. 2010.
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