BWV1090 is one of the so-called Neumeister chorales, rediscovered in the University Library in Harvard in 1985. This one is based on the melody to a chorale by Kaspar Füger, ca. 1586. "We Christian people are now full of joy because Christ is born man as a comfort to us. He has redeemed us. The man who comforts himself with this and believes steadfastly will not be lost".
Walther, city organist in Weimar from 1707, left some 290 chorale preludes ‹ a great many more than his distant relative, but close contemporary and friend Johann Sebastian Bach. This chorale and its melody were written by Nikolaus Herman, born in Altdorf near Nuremberg and from 1518 teacher and cantor in Joachimsthal in Bohemia. Incidentally, the silver mines there gave rise to the name Joachimsthaler for the coins, later just Thaler or Taler, in dialect Daler or Dollar, so the silver dollar is really a German coin and word imported to America.
Tune: Forest Green (arr. by R. Vaughan Williams, 1872-1958)
Brooks was an American episcopalian priest, who was inspired to write the hymn during a visit to the Holy Land, which included Bethlehem and the Church of the Nativity. The tune is Vaughan Williams' adaptation of a traditional English folk ballad "The ploughman's dream", especially arranged for these words.
Tune: Irby (H. J. Gauntlett, 1805-76).
From Mrs Alexander's Hymns for Little Children (1848), a small volume with coloured illustrations. She was born in Dublin, the daughter of an Anglo-Irish army officer, who became agent to the Earl of Wicklow when she was seven. She published almost all her hymns (including "All things bright and beautiful") under her maiden name of Humphreys.
Tune: Yorkshire (John Wainwright, c. 1723-68).
Byrom, the son of a Manchester merchant, originally composed this hymn as a Christmas present for his daughter, not as it is now known, but as a 52-line poem in three sections. Wainwright was organist at Manchester Parish Church, now the Cathedral, and the tune was first sung outside the Byroms' house in Stockport during the first few minutes of Christmas Day 1749. The story that their Jewish neighbours leaned out of the window shouting "Ve are not Christians and ve veren't sleeping" is no doubt apocryphal.
Tune: Adeste fideles (probably J. F. Wade, c. 1710-86).
Despite its air of antiquity, this is an 18th-century creation. Wade was a copyist of plainchant and other music at Douai for most of his life. Oakley, who took a leading part in the Oxford movement, joining Newman at Littlemore in 1845 and became a Roman Catholic.
As an addendum to Fischer's Ariadne Musica (1715) are five Ricercars (a type of fugue) for use on special occasions. This one uses the first line of a 15th-century chorale: "This day is so joyful for every creature, for the Son of God from Heaven is born of a virgin, confounding nature." Fischer was organist to the Margrave of Baden.