Christina Aguilera - Angels We Have Heard On High (RCA Records 2000) video free download

"Angels We Have Heard on High" is a Christmas carol. The song commemorates the story of the birth of Jesus Christ found in the Gospel of Luke, in which shepherds outside Bethlehem encounter a multitude of angels singing and praising the newborn child. "Angels We Have Heard on High" is most commonly sung to the hymn tune "Gloria", as arranged by Edward Shippen Barnes. Its most memorable feature is its chorus:

Gloria in Excelsis Deo! (Latin for "Glory to God in the highest")

where the sung vowel sound "o" of "Gloria" is fluidly sustained through a lengthy rising and falling melismatic melodic sequence:

Glo-o-o-o-o-O-o-o-o-o-O-o-o-o-o-O-ri-a in Ex-cel-sis De-o!

"Gloria in Excelsis Deo" is the first line of the song of the angels in the Gospel according to Luke.

The phrase also appears melismatically in the Latin version of the carol "O Come All Ye Faithful", though somewhat less extended:

Glo-o-o-O-ri-a in Ex-cel-sis De-o.

In England, the words of James Montgomery's "Angels from the Realms of Glory" are sung to this tune, except with the "Gloria in excelsis Deo" refrain. It is from this usage that the tune sometimes is known as Iris, the name of Montgomery's newspaper.

In the English version of "O Come All Ye Faithful", that phrase is poetically translated as Glo-ry to Go-od, Glo-ry in the High-est, (or, "Glo-ry to Go-od, In-- the-- High-est"), reducing the melisma to no more than two notes per word.

Glo-glo-glo-glo-ria

Yeah, ooh, oh, ooh oh, yeah

Angels we have heard on high

Sweetly singing o'er the plain

And the mountains in reply

Echoing their joyous strains

Glo-glo-glo-glo-ria

In excelsis Deo

Ooh, no, yeah, yeah

Shepards, why this jubilee

Why your joyous song prolong

What the gladsome tidings be, ohh

That inspire your heavenly, heavenly song, oh

Glo-glo-glo-glo-ria

In excelsis Deo

Oh oh oh, oh yeah

Oh, come to Bethlehem and see

Him whose birth the angels sing, oh

Come on adore on bended knee

Christ, the Lord, our newborn King

Glo-glo-glo-glo-ria

In excelsis Deo

Oh yeah

[Eric Dawkins & Christina Aguilera]

On the day, that Christ was born

The angels sang such a heavenly song

In excelsis Deo, ohh

Angels we have heard on high

Angels we have heard on high

Angels we have heard on high

Angels we have heard on high

In excelsis Deo

In excelsis Deo

In excelsis Deo