Joy to the World

What you get, immediately after purchase
📄 The sheet music as a PDF, printable and readable on a tablet
🎧 The MP3 audio recording, to learn the piece by ear
✉️ A download link by email, with no account to create

This sheet music is 2 pages long.

Joy to the World brings two eras together: the words are by the English minister Isaac Watts, who published them in 1719 as a paraphrase of Psalm 98, and the music was arranged in 1839 by the American Lowell Mason, who presented it as taken from Handel, so closely does it recall passages of the Messiah. Watts had not written a Christmas carol but a hymn of praise: it was Mason's tune, published under the name Antioch, that brought it into the holiday season, to the point of making it one of the most published Christmas hymns in North America, sung by parish choirs and on the Christmas albums of popular singers alike. Its melody opens with a scale that runs down the whole octave in a single sweep, which makes it recognisable on the piano from the very first notes. A carol to play as the guests arrive on Christmas Day.