{"id":2389,"date":"2013-09-20T23:08:45","date_gmt":"2013-09-21T03:08:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christmasclassics.com\/christmasmusic\/?p=2389"},"modified":"2013-09-20T23:08:45","modified_gmt":"2013-09-21T03:08:45","slug":"christmas-classics-person-day-william-j-kirkpatrick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/christmasclassics.com\/christmasmusic\/christmas-classics-person-day-william-j-kirkpatrick","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Classics PERSON OF THE DAY: William J. Kirkpatrick"},"content":{"rendered":"

On this day in 1921, William J. Kirkpatrick died in Philadelphia. The son of a school teacher and musician, he was responsible for writing one of the more familiar arrangements for Away in a Manger.<\/i><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Born in Duncannon, Pennsylvania, Kirkpatrick went to Philadelphia to learn music and carpentry. His ambition was to be a violinist, which was hampered as he plied his trade as a carpenter. At the age of thirty-four he began to devote more time to sacred music after joining the Wharton Street Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. As a member of the Harmonia and Handel and Haydn Sacred Music Societies, Kirkpatrick gained more exposure to the principal choral works of great composers. After the death of his first wife in 1878, he finally gave up his trade and dedicated his life solely to sacred music and composition, as well as being involved with the publication of forty plus hymnals.<\/p>\n

Kirkpatrick\u2019s tune for Away in a Manger<\/i><\/span><\/strong>, commonly known as The Cradle Song<\/span><\/strong>, <\/i>is most used in England. The Cradle Song<\/i> was first written in 1895 for the musical Around the World with Christmas<\/strong><\/span>. <\/i>In the United States the tune most heard for Away in a Manger <\/i>is associated with James Ramsey Murray (see my March 11, 2011 blog<\/span><\/a>)<\/span><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The anonymous lyrics for <\/b>Away in a Manger<\/i> <\/span><\/strong>likely were written by a member of the German Lutheran colony in Pennsylvania during the late 19th century. The words for the first two stanzas may have first appeared in 1885 in the Little Children’s Book for Schools and Families<\/i><\/span><\/strong>, a publication of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in North America. It is possible, however, that they first appeared in the May 1884 edition of The Myrtle<\/i><\/span><\/strong>, a Universalist Publishing House Boston publication, as Luther’s Cradle Hymn <\/i>t<\/span><\/strong>o <\/i>commemorate the 400th anniversary of the birth of Martin Luther, the great German religious reformer. By the 1940s it was proven conclusively that the original lullaby tune had actually been composed by James Ramsey Murray, supposedly the same person who perpetrated the myth of Luther\u2019s Cradle Hymn<\/i><\/span><\/strong>. Murray\u2019s lullaby was included in an 1887 Cincinnati collection called Dainty Songs for Lads and Lasses<\/i>.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Although many modern hymnals attribute the lyrics of the third stanza to John T. McFarland, a member of the American Lutheran Board of Sunday Schools, it is believed he had merely made reference to it. Instead, the third stanza, which first appeared in an 1892 Louisville, Kentucky, Lutheran Church collection titled Gabriel\u2019s Vineyard Songs<\/i><\/span><\/strong>, was probably the contribution of another anonymous author. This lyrical addition strengthens the inherent tenderness of this renowned American carol hymn.<\/p>\n

Three years later Kirkpatrick wrote the tune The<\/span> Cradle Song <\/span><\/strong><\/em>for the musical Around the World with Christmas<\/span><\/strong>.\u00a0 <\/i>Again, it is that tune that serves as Kirkpatrick\u2019s arrangement for Away in a Manger<\/span><\/strong>.<\/i><\/p>\n

Pennsylvania Germans and Moravians, besides being credited as the source for the anonymous lyrics of Away in a Manger<\/i><\/span><\/strong>, were unique in other aspects of Christmas. They celebrated the humble beginnings of the Christ Child by employing a Christmas decoration called a putz (from the German word \u201cputzen\u201d meaning \u201cto adorn\u201d), for the manger scene. The Moravians, furthermore, may even have played Away in a Manger<\/i><\/span><\/strong> in their trombone choirs that were known to perform from church belfries in Bethlehem, Nazareth, and other Pennsylvania towns with Moravian congregations.<\/p>\n

Bethlehem, the site of the first Moravian church built in eastern Pennsylvania, was so named on Christmas Eve in 1742 when construction of the church was completed. That special night settlers sang in one room of the new structure while cows mooed in the other half, which served as a stable. The scene so moved the congregation, reminding them of events surrounding the birth of the Christ Child in another small town eighteen hundred years earlier, that they christened their settlement Bethlehem.<\/p>\n

\"William<\/a>

William J. Kirkpatrick<\/p><\/div>\n

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