Christmas carol name that tune

Whatever your religious persuasion from none to something significant, a lot of people enjoy a Christmas carol this time of year. So, as we're already getting a bit demob happy, here's the first part of an occasional Christmas quiz. As you might guess from the title, I'm going to give you a snippet from the start of five carols - all you have to do is identify them. (Apologies if you aren't from the UK - some of these tunes may not be the ones you are familiar with.)

The answers are at the bottom of the post, but try all 5 first.

So here we go (NB - embedded Soundcloud players may take a few seconds to load: please be patient!):

Number 1 - we'll start with an easy one.

Number 2

Number 3

Number 4 - probably the most obscure, so I'll give you a couple more notes.

Number 5 - to make this a little different, I've the start of the introduction, not the sung part:

I've taken these snippets from a sort of karaoke carol CD - if you have a secret passion for singing along to carols but prefer to do it without a snooty Oxbridge choir in the background, it's worth taking a look here: www.hymncds.com/christmas.html

So, the answers.

Don't peek if you haven't had a go.

Go back and try.

But if you really want to know....
...

..

.

Here they are:

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen (lose half a mark if you didn't mentally insert the comma)
Once in Royal David's City
As with Gladness Men of Old
The First Nowell

The organ's played by the excellent John Keys - in case you'd like to hear him in full flow, here's something a bit more impressive taken from this album:

Comments

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