stop, collaborate and listen

I enjoyed reading about these rather timeless tunes that were sampled from elsewhere from Mental Floss.
Though most I think know that the anthems of the US are not original in their scoring and reflect a kind of awkward musical appropriation, I had never known that the carol “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” or in Charles Wesley’s first composition Hark! how all the welkins (heavens) ring, glory to the King of kings, was set to the tune of the popular Gutenberg cantata (der Festgesang) by Felix Mendelssohn that celebrated the four hundredth anniversary of the printing-press, that’s a fitting bombastic torch-song tribute to the printed word, first performed in 1840. The carol’s lyrics were adapted to the tune fifteen years later as part of a Christmas medley.