This page is provided so that you can hear the tunes of items which we use in church. Mostly they are written by the vicar. Please note that they are copyright - we are very happy to give permission to you to use them, but we would like to hear about it. Please include any use on your Christian Copyright Licence returns.
Down this page:
- the words,
- the story,
- the sheet music,
- media player.
O come
O come
O Wisdom from God's mouth
reaching all, from north to south,
from east to west, earth's farthest shore:
come, teach us prudence evermore,
as we await your coming,
O come, O come!
O Adonai, our Lord,
once in burning bush adored
by Moses as he saw your face:
come, give to us redeeming grace,
as we await your coming,
O come, O come!
O Root of Jesse, sign
telling kings of one divine,
to you all nations make their prayer:
deliver us, make us aware
that you are surely coming,
O come, O come!
O Key of David's house,
where you open, none shall close.
Release the pris'ners from their cells,
and those in darkness from their hells
and free us by your coming,
O come, O come!
O Morning Star of light,
righteousness who drives out night:
as we are in your image made,
enlighten those who dwell in shade,
and dazzle with your coming,
O come, O come!
O King of ev'ry land,
show mankind your pow'rful hand,
and as you moulded us from clay,
so draw us now into your day,
to greet you in your coming,
O come, O come!
Immanuel, our king,
Saviour, unto whom we sing,
O Hope of Nations: come and save
and rescue from our earthly grave,
and raise us with your coming,
O come, O come, O come!
Words and tune copyright © John Hartley 2007.
Based on the Advent Antiphons.
Story behind the song
The "Advent Antiphons" (or "Refrains"), were in wide use across the church by the 8th century AD, and the hymn "O come O come Emmanuel" is based on a selection of them. They all begin with an invocation "O ...", and are based on a series of titles and pictures of God, from various places in the Old Testament, which describe his saving work and which the Church understood as meaning Christ. They were sung as individual anthems before and after Magnificat at Vespers on the seven days before Christmas Eve (17th-23rd December). The text of them can be found at the end of the Advent material in "Times and Seasons" - a PDF file is available here.
This song is an attempt to set the Antiphons in metrical form to music, and to stay as close as possible to the original given the necessity in song to produce rhyming lines. In fact, it is in a way inspired by the hymn "O come O come Emmanuel" (HTC 66: J M Neale and others from the Latin). A seven-verse hymn is a bit long, and I don't really suggest all seven verses shoudl be sung: in their original use the Antiphons wouldn't be sung all together, but just one on each of the days before Christmas Eve. So I have provided a longer ending for the last verse, whichever it might be.
John Hartley.
Windows Media Player. When you click the left-hand "play" button your computer should have started to play the tune. If it didn't, you might be able to get the tune by clicking here, or by right-clicking the link, choosing "save target as", saving it onto your computer, and then opening it with a music-playing program.
Please remember that a midi file of a tune isn't supposed to be a state-of-the-art musical arrangement - it is only supposed to give a basic idea of how the tune goes. Any reasonable organist / keyboard player / music group could make it sound far better.