“O Come, All Ye Faithful”

After the family entered the church, congregants sang “God Save the King” followed by the Christmas hymn “O Come, All Ye Faithful.”

Willcocks’s arrangement of “O Come, All Ye Faithful” appeared in Carols for Choirs 1, published by Oxford University Press in 1961.

Of particular acclaim in the first volume was the arrangement of “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” but not necessarily because of “The Chord.”

But that moment in “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” he said, “goes just a bit further.”

In addition, the progression that follows bears a striking resemblance to music by the English composer John Stainer, who used the same dramatic chord and elegant escape in his setting of “O Come, All Ye Faithful” — which concluded his Epiphany anthem “I Desired Wisdom,” published in 1876.