O LITTLE ONE SWEET

Music and Text: Samual Scheidt
Translation: Percy Dearmer
Arrangement: Mack Wilberg

In 1650, German composer Samuel Scheidt published his own musical setting of the Christmas poem “O Jesulein süss, o Jesulein mild,” whose words had been written by Scheidt’s contemporary Valentin Thilo. Nearly a century later, in 1736, Johann Sebastian Bach wrote a harmonization of this chorale melody and published it as a sacred song for solo voice. Long beloved as a German Christmas carol, “O Jesulein süss” began appearing in English translation in the early 20th century. 

Perhaps the best-known of these translations was made by Anglican priest and liturgist Percy Dearmer, who arranged Bach’s harmonization of a solo song and recast it for four-part chorus in 1928, published as “O Little One Sweet.”