Because "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" is a
metrical hymn in the common 88.88.88 meter scheme (in some hymnals given as "8.8.8.8 and refrain"), it is possible to pair the words of the hymn with any number of tunes. The meter is shared between the original Latin text and the English translation. However, at least in the English-speaking world, "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" is associated with one tune more than any other, to the extent that the tune itself is often called
Veni Emmanuel.
The "Veni Emmanuel" tune The familiar tune called "Veni Emmanuel" was first linked with this hymn in 1851, when
Thomas Helmore published it in the
Hymnal Noted, paired with an early revision of Neale's English translation of the text. The volume listed the tune as being "From a French Missal in the
National Library, Lisbon." However, Helmore provided no means by which to verify his source, leading to long-lasting doubts about its attribution. There was even speculation that Helmore might have composed the melody himself. The mystery was settled in 1966 by British musicologist
Mary Berry (also an
Augustinian canoness and noted choral conductor), who discovered a 15th-century manuscript containing the melody in the
National Library of France. The manuscript consists of processional chants for burials. The melody used by Helmore is found here with the text "Bone Jesu dulcis cunctis" [O good Jesus, altogether sweet]; it is part of a series of two-part
tropes to the
responsory Libera me. As Berry (writing under her
name in religion, Mother Thomas More) points out in her article on the discovery, "Whether this particular manuscript was the actual source to which [Helmore] referred we cannot tell at present." (Recall that
Hymnal Noted referred to Lisbon, not Paris, and to a missal, not a processional.) Berry raised the possibility that there might exist "an even earlier version of" the melody. However, there is no evidence to suggest that this tune was connected with this hymn before Helmore's hymnal; thus, the two would have first come together in English. Nonetheless, because of the nature of metrical hymns, it is perfectly possible to pair this tune with the Latin text; versions doing so exist by
Zoltán Kodály,
Philip Lawson and , among others. In the German language,
Das katholische Gesangbuch der Schweiz ("The Catholic Hymnal of Switzerland") and
Gesangbuch der Evangelisch-reformierten Kirchen der deutschsprachigen Schweiz ("The Hymnal of the Evangelical-Reformed Churches of German-speaking Switzerland"), both published in 1998, adapt a version of the text by Henry Bone that usually lacks a refrain to use it with this melody. divisio = { \override BreathingSign.Y-offset = #0 \override BreathingSign.minimum-X-extent = #'(-1.0 . 0.0) \override BreathingSign.minimum-Y-extent = #'(-2.5 . 2.5) } maxima = { \divisio %\once \override BreathingSign.stencil = #ly:breathing-sign::divisio-maxima \breathe } finalis = { \divisio %\once \override BreathingSign.stencil = #ly:breathing-sign::finalis \breathe } \header { tagline = ##f } \score { > > > > > > d( \maxima > > d) c d > d b s b1. \finalis e2 c e b d d e d cs s1. \maxima > > > > > > > > d1. \finalis > > r2 > > r2 \maxima > > > > d > > > > d > d b1 b1. \finalis } } >> \new Staff \with { \remove "Time_signature_engraver" \remove "Bar_engraver" midiInstrument = "church organ" \consists "Merge_rests_engraver" } > > s s s s s s s b \maxima s s s g1 a g2 fs g1. \finalis a1 g a2 b1 a1 a1. \maxima s2 > > s s a1 g2 a b1. \finalis > > r2 > > r2 \maxima > a1 s2 s b s g\breve a1 g2 fs g1. \finalis } } \new Voice { \voiceFour \relative c { e2 e d b g c a b d g \maxima d g, b c b a d e b e1.\fermata \finalis c2 a c e d g e fs a > \maxima e2 d b g e' a,1 b2 d g1.\fermata \finalis g2 d1 r2 e2 b1 r2 \maxima e2 a,1 b2 d g d g, b c b a d e b > \finalis } } >> >> \layout { indent = 0 \context { \Score \remove "Bar_number_engraver" } } \midi { \tempo 2=90 } }Source
Rise to hegemony The pairing of the hymn text with the
Veni Emmanuel tune was proved an extremely significant combination. The hymn text was embraced both out of a
Romantic interest in poetic beauty and medieval exoticism and out of a concern for matching hymns to liturgical seasons and functions rooted in the
Oxford Movement in the Church of England. The
Hymnal Noted, in which the words and tune were first combined, represented the "extreme point" of these forces. This hymnal "consisted entirely of versions of Latin hymns, designed for use as Office hymns within the Anglican Church despite the fact that Office hymns had no part in the authorized liturgy. The music was drawn chiefly from plainchant", as was the case with the
Veni Emmanuel tune for "O Come, O Come Emmanuel", the combination of which has been cited as an exemplar of this new style of hymnody. "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" was thus ideally situated to benefit from the cultural forces that would bring about
Hymns Ancient and Modern in 1861. This new hymnal was a product of the same ideological forces that paired it with the
Veni Emmanuel tune, ensuring its inclusion, but was also designed to achieve commercial success beyond any one party of churchmanship, incorporating high-quality hymns of all ideological approaches. A Moravian hymnal from the US gives a tune attributed to
Charles Gounod. Alternative tunes are particularly common in the German-speaking world, where the text of the hymn originated, especially as the hymn was in use there for many years before Helmore's connection of it to the "Veni Emmanuel" tune became known. Among several German paraphrases of the hymn, one is attributed to
Christoph Bernhard Verspoell – one of the earliest and most influential to arise around the late-18th/early-19th century. It is associated with its own distinctive tune, which has enjoyed exceptionally long-lasting popularity in the
Diocese of Münster. A more faithful German translation by
Heinrich Bone became the vehicle for a tune from JBC Schmidts' (Düsseldorf 1836), which remains popular in German diocesan song-books and regional editions of the common hymnal
Gotteslob. This melody was carried across the Atlantic by
Johann Baptist Singenberger, where it remains in use through the present in some Catholic communities in the United States. The Archdiocese of Cologne's supplement to
Gotteslob (#829) includes a tune by CF Ackens (Aachen, 1841) with the Bone translation. A version by Bone without a refrain is commonly connected with a tune from the
Andernacher Gesangbuch (Cologne, 1608), but it can also be used with the melody of the medieval Latin hymn
Conditor alme siderum, further demonstrating the flexibility of metrical hymnody. == Musical influence ==