#TheMusicalJourney - O Come All Ye Faithful (+ Cracker!)

Welcome to Week 18 of #TheMusical Journey A new month means a new theme and December is no different. Welcome to #SeasonsGreetings! O Come All Ye Faithful (Adeste Fideles) has been attributed to many authors, including John Francis Wade, John Reading, King John IV of Portugal and anonymous Cistercian monks. The earliest printed version of the pieces was published in a book by John Wade but the earliest manuscript bears the name of King John IV. The tune itself has been attributed to, amongst others, John Wade, Handel, Gluck, Marco Portugal and Thomas Arne. There are several similar musical themes written around the same time though it is hard to determine whether they were written in imitation or whether the hymn was based on them. John Francis Wade (1711-1786) was an Engish hymnist who was born in either England or Douai. Wade fled to France after the Jacobite rising of 1745 was crushed. While living with other exiled English Catholics in France, he taught music and worked on church music for private use. It has been noted that Wade’s Roman Catholic liturgical books were often decorated with Jacobite floral imagery. It has been argued that ‘Adeste Fidelis’ was a birth ode to Bonnie Prince Charlie, replete with secret references decipherable by the ‘faithful’: the followers of the Pretender, James Francis Edward Stuart. #TheMusicalJourney – Week 18 – #SeasonsGreetings