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Show OLD YULETIDE CAROLS "Holy Night" Regarded as One of Most Beautiful Songs. "Draw Nigh, Immanuel," One of Oldest Old-est Pieces and Far Antedates Ante-dates Any Others. THE ancient Christinas carol, "Holy N'ii;ht" is German it) its origin and is considered by many person's to he the most beautiful of nil Christmas Christ-mas carols. It has sometimes been ascribed to Martin Luther, but the consensus of expert opinion is that it is much older than his time and is one of the oldest of German folk songs. The carol "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen," Is English In its origin and dates back to about the beginning of the .Seventeenth century, although the author of the words and the composer com-poser of the music are unknown. The line old melody sung to this poem possesses pos-sesses all the best qualifications of a sterling hymn tune and will probably last ns long as the verses with which it is always associated. The carol "Draw Nigh, Immanuel," is one of the oldest pieces of coherent music in existence, and both the words and music far nnlcdnte any of the others. oth-ers. The music Is an o:d French melody, mel-ody, dated from the Thirteenth century, cen-tury, although, of course, it has been harmonized to conform with more I modern standards. There is a most curious but beautiful beauti-ful musical effect at the close of this carol. The words of "Draw Nigh, Immanuel," Im-manuel," are about 100 years older than the music, being taken from the Mozarabic breviary of the Twelfth century, cen-tury, and it Is generally believed that tliey were taken from the liturgy of the early Christians at Toledo, Spain, where the Mozarabic breviary was formulated. for-mulated. Another carol, "The First Noel," has a traditional French melody and probably originated In Breton, although al-though the exact origin of litis fine old song is somewhat in doubt. |