Angels We Have Heard On High

Travis Cottrell's "Angels We Have Heard on High" keeps the traditional French carol's shape, opening on the shepherds' side of the story rather than the angels' — "angels we have heard on high, sweetly singing o'er the plains," the mountains themselves seeming to echo the sound back.

The second verse asks the question the whole carol exists to answer: "shepherds, why this jubilee, why your joyous strains prolong, what the gladsome tidings be, which inspire your heav'nly song?" It's a natural question for anyone hearing about this moment secondhand, and the carol makes sure to actually answer it rather than just repeating the famous refrain.

"Come to Bethlehem and see Him whose birth the angels sing, come adore on bended knee, Christ the Lord, our newborn King" gives the direct answer, and "see Him in a manger laid, Jesus, Lord of heav'n and earth" holds two things together without flinching — the smallness of a manger and the scale of "Lord of heaven and earth" in the very same breath. The Latin refrain running through it all, "Gloria in excelsis Deo," is the same phrase Luke records the angels actually singing that night.