Mario Lanza - It Came Upon The Midnight Clear

Lanza's beautiful voice and photos of him are combined with master paintings for this video of the carol “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear“. The photographs of Mario Lanza are from the film “The Great Caruso“. It is an excellent film and is available for sale from Turner Classic Movies. “'It Came Upon the Midnight Clear' (sometimes rendered as 'It Came Upon a Midnight Clear') is a poem and Christmas carol written by Edmund Sears, pastor of the Unitarian Church in Wayland, Massachusetts. Sears' lyrics are most commonly set to one of two melodies: 'Carol', composed by Richard Storrs Willis, or 'Noel', adapted from an English melody. Edmund Sears composed the five-stanza poem in 1849. It first appeared on December 29, 1849 in the Christian Register in Boston. Sears is said to have written these words at the request of his friend, William Parsons Lunt, pastor of United First Parish Church, Quincy, Massachusetts. In 1850, Richard S