A Note on the Tunes

Redner's tune (St. Louis) is the original one and in the United States still the most frequent and customary melody for the text. Lewis Redner was the organist in the church where Phillips Brooks was priest. They say that Brooks wrote the poem and wanted to use it in a Christmas service, but didn't have a suitable tune, so at the last moment he turned to Redner, who composed the music on the evening preceding the service - and Brooks baptized the tune "St. Louis" to surreptitiously praise Redner. (In English "Lewis" and "Louis" sound alike, and St. Louis is not only the name of a saint, but also the name of a city in Missouri.) Incidentally, the Zamenhof's Birthday song "Ho Zamenhof, vi foras nun" by DoKo Jordan is intended to be sung to the present tune.

In Britain the first (and in the USA the second) tune for the text is Forest Green. A third melody is Christmas Carol, composed by H. Walford Davies; that one is recommended by Himnaro Esperanta and in Britain it seems to be in competition with Forest Green, but in the United States I have only found it in the 1932 Christian Science Hymnal. A fourth possibility, according to HE, is Bethlehem, probably tghe one by Gottfried W. Fink, for which I give a MIDI here. Fifthly and last ;-), The Cyber Hymnal proposes Ephratah.