Adeste Fideles
Encyclopedia
"Adeste Fideles" is a hymn tune
Hymn tune
A hymn tune is the melody of a musical composition to which a hymn text is sung. Musically speaking, a hymn is generally understood to have four-part harmony, a fast harmonic rhythm , and no refrain or chorus....

 attributed to English hymnist John Francis Wade
John Francis Wade
John Francis Wade was an English hymnist who is credited with writing and composing the hymn "Adeste Fideles" ....

 (although the exact authorship is unknown and disputed). The text itself has unclear beginnings, and may have been written in the 13th century by John of Reading
John of Reading
John of Reading was an English Franciscan theologian and scholastic philosopher. He was an early opponent of William of Ockham, and a follower of Duns Scotus. He wrote a commentary on the Sentences around 1320, at the University of Oxford. He argued for the unity of science...

, though it has been concluded that Wade was probably the author.

The original four verses of the hymn were extended to a total of eight, and these have been translated into many languages many times, though the English "O Come, All Ye Faithful" translation by the English Roman Catholic priest Frederick Oakeley
Frederick Oakeley
Frederick Oakeley was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England the sixth son of Sir Charles Oakeley, second baronet, and educated at Christ Church, Oxford. He was ordained in 1828 and in 1845 converted from Church of England to Catholicism, whereupon he became Canon of Westminster in 1852....

 is particularly widespread.

Tune

Before the emergence of John Francis Wade
John Francis Wade
John Francis Wade was an English hymnist who is credited with writing and composing the hymn "Adeste Fideles" ....

 as the probable composer, the tune had been purported to be written by several musicians, from John Reading and his son to Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...

 and even Gluck, including the Portuguese composer Marcos Portugal
Marcos Portugal
Marcos António da Fonseca Portugal was a Portuguese classical composer, who achieved great international fame for his operas in Italian....

. There are several similar musical themes written around that time, though it can be hard to determine whether these were written in imitation of the hymn, the hymn was based on them, or they are totally unconnected.

The earliest existing manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...

 shows both words and tune. John Francis Wade included it in his own publication of Cantus Diversi (1751). It was published again in the 1760 edition of Evening Offices of the Church. It also appeared in Samuel Webbe
Samuel Webbe
Samuel Webbe was an English composer.Born in Minorca in 1740, Webbe was brought up in London. His father died when he was still a baby and his mother returned to London where she raised Webbe in difficult circumstances. At the age of eleven he was apprenticed to a cabinet maker, and during the...

's An Essay on the Church Plain Chant (1782).

English

O come, all ye faithful,

Joyful and triumphant!

O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem;

Come and behold him

Born the King of Angels:

Chorus:

O come, let us adore Him,

O come, let us adore Him,

O come, let us adore Him,

Christ the Lord.

God of God,

Light of Light,

Lo, he abhors not the Virgin's womb;

Very God,

Begotten, not created:

Sing, choirs of angels,

Sing in exultation,

Sing, all ye citizens of Heaven above!

Glory to God

In the highest:

Yea, Lord, we greet thee,

Born this happy morning;

Jesus, to thee be glory given!

Word of the Father,

Now in flesh appearing!

Latin

The following verses are generally attributed to Wade and correspond to the English verses given above.

Adeste fideles laeti triumphantes,

Venite, venite in Bethlehem.

Natum videte Regem angelorum.

Venite adoremus (ter)

Dominum.

Deum de Deo, lumen de lumine,

Gestant puellae viscera.

Deum verum, genitum non factum.

Venite adoremus (ter)

Dominum.

Cantet nunc 'Io', chorus angelorum;

Cantet nunc aula caelestium,

Gloria! Soli Deo Gloria!

Venite adoremus (ter)

Dominum.

Ergo qui natus die hodierna.

Jesu, tibi sit gloria,

Patris aeterni Verbum caro factum.

Venite adoremus (ter)

Dominum.

There are additional Latin verses in various sources. For example:

En grege relicto, humiles ad cunas,

Vocati pastores adproperant:

Et nos ovanti gradu festinemus,

Venite adoremus, venite adoremus,

Venite adoremus Dominum.

Text

The original text has been from time to time attributed to various groups and individuals, including St. Bonaventure in the 13th century or King John IV of Portugal
John IV of Portugal
|-|John IV was the King of Portugal and the Algarves from 1640 to his death. He was the grandson of Catherine, Duchess of Braganza, who had in 1580 claimed the Portuguese crown and sparked the struggle for the throne of Portugal. John was nicknamed John the Restorer...

 in the 17th, though it was more commonly believed that the text was written by an order of monks, the Cistercian, German, Portuguese and Spanish orders having, at various times, been given credit.

The original text consisted of four Latin verses, and it was with these that the hymn was originally published. The Abbé
Abbé
Abbé is the French word for abbot. It is the title for lower-ranking Catholic clergymen in France....

 Étienne Jean François Borderies wrote an additional three verses in the 18th century; these are normally printed as the third to fifth of seven verses, while another, anonymous, additional Latin verse is rarely printed. The text has been translated innumerable times, but the most used version today is the English "O Come, All Ye Faithful". This is a combination of one of Frederick Oakeley
Frederick Oakeley
Frederick Oakeley was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England the sixth son of Sir Charles Oakeley, second baronet, and educated at Christ Church, Oxford. He was ordained in 1828 and in 1845 converted from Church of England to Catholicism, whereupon he became Canon of Westminster in 1852....

's translations of the original four verses and William Thomas Brooke's of the three additional ones, which was first published in Murray's Hymnal in 1852.

King John IV

The most commonly named Portuguese author is King John IV of Portugal
John IV of Portugal
|-|John IV was the King of Portugal and the Algarves from 1640 to his death. He was the grandson of Catherine, Duchess of Braganza, who had in 1580 claimed the Portuguese crown and sparked the struggle for the throne of Portugal. John was nicknamed John the Restorer...

 . "The Musician King" (1603–1656, came to the throne in 1640) was a patron of music and the arts, and a considerably sophisticated writer on music; in addition, he was a composer, and during his reign he collected one of the largest libraries in the world (destroyed in the Lisbon earthquake of 1755). The first part of his musical work was published in 1649. He founded a Music School in Vila Viçosa
Vila Viçosa
Vila Viçosa is a municipality in Portugal with a total area of 195.0 km² and a total population of 8,745 inhabitants.The municipality is composed of 5 parishes, and is located in the District of Évora....

 that "exported" musicians to Spain and Italy and it was there at his Vila Viçosa palace that the two manuscripts of the "Portuguese Hymn" have been found. Those manuscripts (1640) predate Wade's eighteenth-century manuscript. Among the King's writings is a Defense of Modern Music (Lisbon, 1649). In the same year (1649) he had a huge struggle to get instrumental music approved by the Vatican for use in the Catholic Church. His other famous composition is a setting of the Crux fidelis, a work that remains highly popular during Lent
Lent
In the Christian tradition, Lent is the period of the liturgical year from Ash Wednesday to Easter. The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer – through prayer, repentance, almsgiving and self-denial – for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and...

 amongst church choirs.

Jacobite connection

The hymn has been interpreted as a Jacobite
Jacobitism
Jacobitism was the political movement in Britain dedicated to the restoration of the Stuart kings to the thrones of England, Scotland, later the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the Kingdom of Ireland...

 birth ode to Bonnie Prince Charlie
Charles Edward Stuart
Prince Charles Edward Louis John Casimir Sylvester Severino Maria Stuart commonly known as Bonnie Prince Charlie or The Young Pretender was the second Jacobite pretender to the thrones of Great Britain , and Ireland...

. Professor Bennett Zon, head of music at Durham University
Durham University
The University of Durham, commonly known as Durham University, is a university in Durham, England. It was founded by Act of Parliament in 1832 and granted a Royal Charter in 1837...

, claims the carol is actually a birth ode to Bonnie Prince Charlie
Charles Edward Stuart
Prince Charles Edward Louis John Casimir Sylvester Severino Maria Stuart commonly known as Bonnie Prince Charlie or The Young Pretender was the second Jacobite pretender to the thrones of Great Britain , and Ireland...

, the secret political code being decipherable by the "faithful" — supposedly the Jacobites, with Bethlehem a common Jacobite cipher for England and Regem Angelorum a pun on Angelorum (Angels) and Anglorum (English). From the 1740s to 1770s the earliest forms of the carol commonly appeared in English Roman Catholic liturgical
Liturgy
Liturgy is either the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to its particular traditions or a more precise term that distinguishes between those religious groups who believe their ritual requires the "people" to do the "work" of responding to the priest, and those...

 books close to prayers for the exiled Old Pretender. In the books by Wade it was often decorated with Jacobite floral imagery, as were other liturgical texts with coded Jacobite meanings.

Performance

In performance verses are often omitted, either because the hymn is too long in its entirety or because the words are unsuitable for the day on which they are sung. For example the eighth anonymous verse is only sung on Epiphany, if at all; while the last verse of the original is normally reserved for Christmas Midnight Mass
Midnight Mass
Midnight Mass is a Christmas Eve liturgical tradition in the Roman Catholic church.Midnight Mass may also refer to:* Midnight, Mass., a Vertigo comics series* Midnight Mass, a 2004 novel by F...

, Mass at Dawn, or Mass During the Day.
In the United Kingdom and United States it is often sung today in an arrangement by Sir David Willcocks, which was originally published in 1961 by Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...

 in the first book in the Carols for Choirs
Carols for Choirs
Carols for Choirs, published by Oxford University Press, edited by Sir David Willcocks with Reginald Jacques and John Rutter, is the most widely-used source of carols in the British Anglican tradition, and among British choral societies.There are four books in the original series and a portmanteau...

 series. This arrangement makes use of the basic harmonisation from The English Hymnal but adds a soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...

 descant
Descant
Descant or discant can refer to several different things in music, depending on the period in question; etymologically, the word means a voice above or removed from others....

 in verse 6 (verse 3 in the original) with its reharmonised organ
Pipe organ
The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air through pipes selected via a keyboard. Because each organ pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre and volume throughout the keyboard compass...

 accompaniment, and a last verse harmonisation
Last verse harmonisation
Last verse harmonisation is a technique of hymn accompaniment used by church organists. As the name suggests, this is a practice whereby the last verse of a hymn tune will be accompanied on the organ with an alternative harmony supporting the melody, which remains unchanged...

 in verse 7 (verse 4 in the original), which is sung in unison.

This carol has served as the second-last hymn
Hymn
A hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification...

 sung at the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols
Nine Lessons and Carols
The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols is a format for a service of Christian worship celebrating the birth of Jesus that is traditionally followed at Christmas...

 in King's College, Cambridge
King's College, Cambridge
King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....

, after the last lesson from Chapter 1 of the Gospel of John
Gospel of John
The Gospel According to John , commonly referred to as the Gospel of John or simply John, and often referred to in New Testament scholarship as the Fourth Gospel, is an account of the public ministry of Jesus...

.

Numerous cover versions have been recorded by artists from around the world, including Jackie Evancho
Jackie Evancho
Jacqueline Marie "Jackie" Evancho is an American child singer described as a classical crossover artist. After entering some talent competitions, issuing an independent album, Prelude to a Dream, and attracting interest on YouTube, she gained wider popularity in 2010 with her performances in the...

, Gerry Rafferty
Gerry Rafferty
Gerald "Gerry" Rafferty was a Scottish singer songwriter best known for his solo hits "Baker Street", "Right Down the Line", "Days Gone Down", "Night Owl", "Get It Right Next Time", and with the band Stealers Wheel, "Stuck in the Middle with You". Rafferty was born into a working-class family in...

, Bing Crosby
Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....

, Nat King Cole
Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles , known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres...

, Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....

, Celine Dion
Celine Dion
Céline Marie Claudette Dion, , , is a Canadian singer. Born to a large family from Charlemagne, Quebec, Dion emerged as a teen star in the French-speaking world after her manager and future husband René Angélil mortgaged his home to finance her first record...

, Josh Groban
Josh Groban
Joshua Winslow "Josh" Groban is an American singer-songwriter, musician, actor, and record producer. His four solo albums have been certified at least multi-platinum, and in 2007, he was charted as the number-one best selling artist in the United States with over 21 million records in that country...

, Twisted Sister
Twisted Sister
Twisted Sister is an American heavy metal band from Long Island. Musically, the band implements elements of traditional heavy metal bands such as Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, along with a style that is similar to early glam metal bands...

, Brian McKnight
Brian McKnight
Brian McKnight is an American singer-songwriter, arranger, producer, and R&B/Pop musician. He is a multi-instrumentalist who plays nine instruments: piano, guitar, bass guitar, drums, percussions, trombone, tuba, flugelhorn and trumpet....

, Mariah Carey
Mariah Carey
Mariah Carey is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress. She made her recording debut with the release of her eponymous studio album in 1990, under the guidance of Columbia Records executive Tommy Mottola, whom she later married in 1993...

, Christian Bautista
Christian Bautista
Christian Joseph Morata Bautista , more popularly known by his screen name Christian Bautista, is a Filipino singer, actor, host, and model. He was a finalist of Star In A Million, a Philippine reality show aired on ABS-CBN channel, winning the 4th place in the competition in 2003...

, Jim Reeves
Jim Reeves
James Travis Reeves , better known as Jim Reeves, was an American country and popular music singer-songwriter. With records charting from the 1950s to the 1980s, he became well-known for being a practitioner of the Nashville sound...

, Tennessee Ernie Ford
Tennessee Ernie Ford
Ernest Jennings Ford , better known as Tennessee Ernie Ford, was an American recording artist and television host who enjoyed success in the country and Western, pop, and gospel musical genres...

, Enya
Enya
Enya is an Irish singer, instrumentalist and songwriter. Enya is an approximate transliteration of how Eithne is pronounced in the Donegal dialect of the Irish language, her native tongue.She began her musical career in 1980, when she briefly joined her family band Clannad before leaving to...

 and Take 6
Take 6
Take 6 is an American a cappella gospel music sextet formed in 1980 on the campus of Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama. The group sings in a contemporary style, integrating R&B and jazz influences into their devotional songs and has 10 Grammy wins, 10 Dove Awards, one Soul Train Award and two...

. In 1965 Sergio Franchi
Sergio Franchi
Sergio Franchi was an Italian tenor.Franchi was born in Cremona, Italy. His father wanted him to become an electrical engineer, so he studied both music and engineering simultaneously. The family moved to South Africa in 1952, where Sergio worked part-time as a draftsman, while continuing to study...

 recorded the English version on his Billboard Top 40 album, The Heart of Christmas.

The Portuguese Hymn

The hymn was known for a while as the Portuguese Hymn after the Duke of Leeds
Duke of Leeds
Duke of Leeds was a title in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1694 for the prominent statesman Thomas Osborne, 1st Marquess of Carmarthen...

 in 1795 heard the hymn being sung at the Portuguese embassy in London and assumed that it had originated from Portugal. The translation that he heard differs greatly from the Oakeley-Brooke translation.

Also a different account of the story, which is more believed to be true, is that King John IV of Portugal wrote this hymn to accompany his daughter Catherine to England, where she married King Charles II
Charles II of England
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...

. Wherever she went she and her embassy, were announced and accompanied with this hymn, which became widely know in England as the Portuguese Hymn, because it actually represented Portugal (in the form of the Princess).

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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