What Wondrous Love Is This

[1] Its text was first published in 1811, during the Second Great Awakening, and its melody derived from a popular English ballad (Roud number 5089).

[4] The lyrics may also have been printed, in a slightly different form, in the 1811 book Hymns and Spiritual Songs, Original and Selected published in Lexington, Kentucky.

[10]) In the early 1800s, when the lyrics to "What Wondrous Love Is This" were first published, hymnals typically lacked any musical notation.

[12] The text and melody were first published together in the appendix of the 1840[13] edition of The Southern Harmony, a book of shape note hymns compiled by William Walker.

[14] In 1952, American composer and musicologist Charles F. Bryan included "What Wondrous Love Is This" in his folk opera Singin' Billy.

[16] Norman Blake accelerated the first six notes of "What Wondrous Love Is This" (the notes of that title's five words) and three repetitions of them as the intro[17] of his 1972 or 1973 bluegrass reel “Coming Down from Rising Fawn.” Dwayne S. Milburn composed a prelude on Wondrous Love as the first movement of his "American Hymnsong Suite" (2003) for concert band.

[3] The Unitarian Universalist hymnal replaces the original lyrics with words by Connie Campbell Hart to better reflect the denomination's theology.

[18] In 2003, the group Blue Highway, sing this and recorded this in a new version, included in the album "Wondrous Love".

The traditional version is also available in Messianic Christian singer Helen Shapiro's CD 'What Wondrous Love'.

Folk singer Melanie Safka also gave a well loved secular interpretation of the song on her album "Gather Me" in 1971.

In 2023, the song was performed by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chamber Chorus during the memorial service for Rosalynn Carter.

[23] The following lyrics are those printed in the 1811 hymnal A General Selection of the Newest and Most Admired Hymns and Spiritual Songs Now in Use;[24] a number of variations exist, but most are descended from this version.