Joy to the World

About this arrangement

Lowell Mason’s tune in D major, two sharps (F sharp and C sharp), the whole of verse 1. It is in 2/4, two crotchet beats in a bar, and opens with the famous scale running straight down from the D above middle C to middle D, so the right hand starts on finger 5 and passes finger 3 over the thumb on the way down. Later the tune leaps up again; follow the fingering at each move. “Let every heart prepare Him room” stretches over two falling phrases, two or three notes to a word. The “and heaven and nature sing” lines have little semiquaver turns and a second note under the long notes. The left hand mixes a bass note and chord, broken chords, and short detached quavers, like the men’s voices echoing in Mason’s hymn, and finishes with strong octaves.

Practice tip: Let the opening scale fall evenly, like a bell peal, with the dotted rhythm crisp. In the “and heaven and nature sing” bars keep the repeated notes light and the semiquaver pairs neat, and play the left-hand staccato quavers short and bouncy.

The words

Joy to the world! the Lord is come! Let earth receive her King; Let every heart prepare Him room, And heav’n and nature sing, And heav’n and nature sing, And heaven, and heaven, and nature sing.

A short history

Isaac Watts, the English minister who wrote hundreds of hymns, published these words in 1719 in The Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament, under the heading “The Messiah’s Coming and Kingdom”. They are his Christian paraphrase of Psalm 98, “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth”. There are no shepherds, angels or manger in them; it was not written as a Christmas carol, but its joyful welcome to a Lord who “is come” has made it one.

The tune, called “Antioch”, was published by the American hymn writer and teacher Lowell Mason, first in 1836 and in a very similar form in The Modern Psalmist in 1839. Mason marked it “From Handel”, and its opening does echo the chorus “Lift up your heads” in Messiah, but no Handel original has ever been found; a tune called “Comfort”, printed in 1832, is very close to it.

It is now the most-published Christmas hymn in North American hymn books.

Quick facts

Tune

“Antioch”, as arranged by Lowell Mason, 1839

Words

Isaac Watts, 1719

Level

Intermediate (full verses, a moving left hand)

Key

D major

Time signature

2/4

Length

20 bars

Tempo

Joyfully, crotchet = 96

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