God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen

About this arrangement

The carol in E minor, two verses with the refrain, at a brisk walking pace. In verse 1 the right hand plays the tune with one or two notes below it, and the left hand drives along in quavers, a bass note and its fifth on every beat. The harmony is chromatic: the bass falls E, D sharp, D, C sharp under “Remember Christ”, an E7 chord with G sharp leads into “To save us all”, and in the refrain “comfort and joy” steps down over E, D, C and B to a B major chord. Verse 2 moves the tune up an octave, played in octaves with chord notes between, while the left hand plays repeated octave quavers. The last chord is E major, a bright ending in a minor key.

Practice tip: Keep the left-hand quavers steady and slightly detached: they are the engine of the piece. In verse 2, practise the octave quavers with a loose wrist and keep the right-hand thumb light so the top note, the tune, rings out. Watch the D sharps and C sharps, which change from bar to bar.

The words

God rest ye merry, gentlemen, let nothing you dismay, Remember Christ our Saviour was born on Christmas Day, To save us all from Satan's power when we were gone astray. O tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy. O tidings of comfort and joy. From God our heavenly Father, A blessed angel came, And unto certain shepherds Brought tidings of the same, How that in Bethlehem was born The Son of God by name. O tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy. O tidings of comfort and joy.

A short history

God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen is one of the oldest carols still widely sung. A version of the words survives in a manuscript from the 1650s, and it was printed on broadsides from about 1760. The opening means “May God keep you merry, gentlemen”, which is why the comma belongs after “merry”.

The tune is a traditional English one, in print by 1827, and the antiquarian William Sandys helped make the carol popular by including it in his Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern in 1833. Charles Dickens has a young caroller start to sing it through Scrooge’s keyhole in A Christmas Carol (1843), and Scrooge chases him off with a ruler.

The first verse here is the one usually sung today: its opening, “Remember Christ our Saviour was born on Christmas Day”, is the 18th-century broadside text, and its last two lines, “to save us all from Satan’s power when we were gone astray”, are Sandys’ 1833 wording (the older prints have “poor souls” that “had gone astray”). The second verse, about the angel and the shepherds, is from Sandys.

Quick facts

Tune

Traditional English (in print by 1827)

Words

Traditional English (broadsides from about 1760; William Sandys, 1833)

Level

Advanced (concert arrangements, full texture)

Key

E minor

Time signature

4/4

Length

38 bars and a pickup

Tempo

Briskly, crotchet = 112

Hands

Both hands on the grand staff: right hand on the treble staff, left hand on the bass staff

Copyright

Public domain tune and words; arrangement by Digital Greenhouse, free for personal, church and classroom use

Questions and answers