Christmas Carols Week 2

Silent Night

An enduring carol.

Most Christmas songs live short lives before they are forgotten.

Not Silent Night, though.

Silent night has been translated into over 300 languages.

It has been designated by UNESCO as a treasured item of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

It is the most recorded carol of all time.

It had a very humble beginning however.

In 1818, the people of Oberndorf, Germany were preparing to celebrate Christmas for the first time in their new church building.

There were several special events scheduled for the Christmas season.

Things were not going well in Europe as the continent was still struggling to recover from the Napoleonic wars.

A volcanic eruption in Indonesia had caused widespread climate change in Europe.

The preceeding year had been dubbed the year without a summer due to the unusual coldness.

It was a time of famine and economic hardship.

But, Christmas was a time to forget about all that for at least a little while.

One of the events that were scheduled was a drama depicting the Christmas story put on by professional actors.

The event was supposed to be held at the new church building, but this was prevented by repair work being done on the newly installed organ.

There are many conflicting accounts as to why this was taking place.

Some say there was rust from the organ being in storage waiting on installation.

Others say that the lack of food caused mice to eat the leather workings of the organ rendering it unusable.

Whatever the reason, the performance ended up talking place at the private home of one of the church members.

That night, after the performance, the pastor, Joseph Mohr walked home in the snow.

Rather than taking the direct route home, Joseph took a more circuitous route that led him up a hill overlooking the city.

Though the play had gone well, Joseph knew that the organ would not be repaired before the upcoming Christmas eve service.

The intricate musical performance that they had planned would not be able to take place as planned.

As Mohr looked out on the snow covered village, his mind went back to the beginnings of a poem he had started sometime earlier.

Inspired by the Christmas story he had just seen acted out and by the Christmas card scene of the sleepy village, Joseph went home and completed the six stanzas of Stille Nacht Heilige Nacht.

The next day, which was Christmas eve, Joseph approached the church’s organist, Franz Gruber and presented him with the poem.

He asked Gruber to compose a tune that could accompany the poem so that they could sing it that night for the Christmas eve service.

In just a few hours, Franz composed a tune that could be performed with only a guitar.

That night, December 24, 1818 the two friends sang Silent Night for the first time as a duet accompanied by guitar.

A quick word about the tune of Silent Night.

Gruber utilized an Italian musical style called a siciliana.

A siciliana is a melody that mimics the sound of water and rolling waves.

When you listen to the song you can hear the cadence of the ocean .

This was done intentionally to connect with the members of the church who largely worked along the Salzach river.

How did the song begin to spread?

We can once again thank the organ for that.

Weeks later, master organ builder and repairman, Karl Maraucher showed up at the church to complete the repairs on the church’s organ.

When he had finished, he stepped back and asked Gruber to come test out the instrument.

Franz sat down and immediately began testing out not only the new organ but the new carol.

When Maraucher heard the tune of Silent Night, he fell in love with it and requested a copy of the music.

Gruber agreed, and Maraucher took it and began spreading the song.

The song really took off when it came to the attention of two families of traveling singers.

The Strassers and the Rainers family of singers were in the same vein as the Von Trapp Family of Singers.

They took the song and sang it so much that it became one of the most popular folk songs of the day.

It was the Rainers who brought the song to America where it was translated into English in 1863.

As it’s popularity grew, it’s origins became lost.

Some attributed the song to Haydn, Mozart, or even Beethoven.

In 1854, Gruber wrote a letter claiming the song and telling the story of it’s authorship.

The mystique of the song may have culminated in 1914.

On Christmas Day during the trench warfare of World War 1.

Someone, began singing silent night in the trench.

A tune that was known by both sides was soon echoed in another language by the enemy forces.

The song continued to grow in volume until a truce was called and for one day, German and Allied forces crawled out of their trenches and shared a moment of peace celebrating Christmas.

O, Holy Night

On Christmas Eve, 1906, Canadian professor, Reginald Fessenden made history.

Fessenden had formerly worked as chief chemist for Thomas Edison.

Fessenden had acquired a new type of generator and intended to use it to transmit a live radio broadcast for the first time ever.

Accounts vary, but one thing is known for sure.

Ship captains, stock brokers, newspaper offices, anyone normally listening in to coded radio broadcasts traded their dots and dashes in for the sound of a man’s voice.

Reginald’s voice came through these tiny speakers as he read the Christmas story from Luke.

He then picked up his violin and played O, Holy Night as the first live music transmitted over the radio waves.

Reginald couldn’t have imagined the sensation he created by what many called a Christmas miracle.

Where did this beloved song get it’s start, though?

It actually started with a very unlikely individual.

Placide Cappeau de Roquemaure wrote the song in 1847.

Placide was the commissioner of wines in his small French town.

Though he was known for his skills in poetry, he was not known for his church attendance.

This did not prevent the local church from contacting him and commissioning him to write a poem for the upcoming Christmas service.

Placide agreed.

On a trip to Paris, Placide decided try to come up with something in the carriage.

He opened his Bible to the book of Luke and tried to imagine what it would have been like to be there on the night Jesus was born.

By the time he arrived in Paris, the words for Cantique de Noel were complete.

As Placide meditated on the poem, he was so impressed with his own work that he decided this was more than a poem.

This needed to be put to music.

This was a song that deserved to be sung.

So he contacted one of his friends to help him.

Adolphe Charles Adams was the son of a famous composer.

He was an established composer himself.

He agreed to compose the music, though he did not personally celebrate Christmas.

Adolphe was Jewish and so was not an observer of the birth of Jesus.

The tune was written and Cantique de Noel was performed for the first time in the Christmas Eve Service of 1847.

The song became very popular in France.

The Germans has Stille Nachte; the French had Cantique de Noel.

Soon, however, the French Catholic church tried to ban the song.

Placide ended up leaving the French church completely.

He joined a growing socialist movement in the country.

Then, it was discovered that Adolphe, the composer, was Jewish.

The French Catholics said this of the song, "Cantique de Noel" is unfit for church services because of its lack of musical taste and "total absence of the spirit of religion."

The people sang it anyway.

10 years after it was first performed and in the midst of it’s ban in France, an American heard the song.

John S. Dwight discovered the song and determined to bring it to America.

An ardent abolitionist, Dwight found the powerful message of verse 3 to be the kind of thing America needed to hear.

The words of verse 3 say, “Truly he taught us to love one another; his law is love and his gospel is peace. Chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother; and in his name all oppression shall cease.”

The song immediately caught on and became a staple in American music during the Christmas season.

By 1871, the song was still banned in France.

The French were entangled in the midst of the Franco-Prussian War against Germany.

On Christmas Eve, something happened that may have inspired future events.

A French soldier suddenly climbed out of his trench and stood between the two armies.

He immediately began singing Cantique de Noel.

Nothing happened as the soldier looked to heaven and sang.

Then, as the song ended, a German soldier stepped out of his trench and began singing a German carol written by Martin Luther.

What followed was a 24 hour truce as men from both sides gathered together to celebrate Christmas.

When news of this event reached the leaders of the French church, they decided to allow the use of the song in services again.

This leads us back to old Reginald in 1907 taking out his violin and performing O, Holy Night live over the radio for the first time ever.