{"id":2065,"date":"2013-08-30T16:37:52","date_gmt":"2013-08-30T20:37:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christmasclassics.com\/christmasmusic\/?p=2065"},"modified":"2013-09-10T14:09:14","modified_gmt":"2013-09-10T18:09:14","slug":"christmas-classics-person-of-the-day-william-hayman-cummings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/christmasclassics.com\/christmasmusic\/christmas-classics-person-of-the-day-william-hayman-cummings","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Classics PERSON OF THE DAY: William Hayman Cummings"},"content":{"rendered":"

In August 1831 William Hayman Cummings was born in Sidbury, England. He was a musician, notable tenor, and organist who may be best known for his wedding of Felix Mendelssohn\u2019s music to the Charles Wesley hymn Hark! <\/strong>T<\/strong>he Herald Angels Sing<\/em><\/span>. An accomplished musician, Cummings was educated at St. Paul\u2019s Cathedral Choir School and the City of London School. He was also the founder of the Purcell Society, a reputable singing professor at the Royal Academy of Music and later a principal for the Guildhall School of Music.<\/p>\n

Wesley, who co-founded the Methodist Church, originally titled his hymn as Hark! How All the Welkin Rings<\/i><\/strong><\/span> in the 1739 publication Hymns and Sacred Poems<\/i><\/strong><\/span>. The carol melody was adapted from a cantata that Mendelssohn wrote as part of his commission to compose music for the 1840 Leipzig Gutenberg Festival. That festival commemorated the 400th anniversary of the invention of the printing press by Johann Gutenberg. Six years later the teenage Cummings was a chorister for Mendelssohn\u2019s first London performance of Elijah<\/i><\/strong><\/span>, the second of three oratorios composed by the German master.<\/p>\n

Perhaps during that performance Cummings developed an admiration for Mendelssohn\u2019s music and then in 1855 decided to link Mendelssohn\u2019s music with Charles Wesley\u2019s hymn. Thus on Christmas Day of that year, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing<\/em><\/strong> <\/span>was first sung at Waltham Abbey with William Hayman Cummings at the organ.<\/p>\n

\"William<\/a>

William H. Cummings<\/p><\/div>\n

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