Charles Wesley (1707-1788)
"Hark the Herald Angels Sing," a well-known Christmas carol, was originally written by Charles Wesley as "Hark! How All the Welkin Rings." When the hymn was published in 1753 by George Whitefield, the words and title were changed. Whitefield didn't like the word "welkin," which means "vault of heaven." The melody of the carol comes from an 1840 cantata, "Festgesang Number 7," composed as a cantata by Felix Mendelssohn to celebrate the famous printer of the Bible, Johann Gutenburg. In 1857, William Cummings, organist of England's Waltham Abbey, discovered that the words of the hymn fit Mendelssohn's melody (with a few minor adjustments).
