By Corazon Damo-Santiago
God, who wills everything to happen, allowed man to compose music for himself, to make him fulfilled and happy. And holy, too.
Although the 20th century is characterized as the post-truth era, to the composer, poet or artist, history is an emotional passage of time, as well. For the annals of time are replete with chronicles when objective facts influence and appeal to the emotion.
Sensual pleasure and narcissism are preferred benchmarks in the secular world. As well as in the subject of music.
How sad for “cravings that compete with God’s supremacy in our life stimulates greed in our hearts and dulls our affection for Christ,” laments C. J. Mahaney in Worldliness.
Thus, the name of Christ is even being eased out in the celebration of Christmas. The words “Happy Holidays” are preferred to “Merry Christmas” in many countries.
During Advent, our ears are satiated with music of a sensate-oriented world in words, rhythm, harmony and melody. The music lingers in the mind and heart long after it has stopped.
The great danger in consumerism, according to Pope Francis in Evangelii Gaudium, is a covetous heart “caught up in its own interests and concerns,” that “God’s voice is no longer heard, and the quiet joy of His love is no longer felt and the desires to do good fades.”
But some of the musical pieces written to honor Christ’s birth have remained favorites through the centuries.
The words never fail to lift man’s spirit and invite him to fall on his knees to acknowledge God with us.
‘Silent Night’ now in 300 languages
After watching a Christmas drama in a private home in a town in Austrian Alps, Assistant Pastor Joseph Mohr of Obernadorf bei Salzburg in Austria took a longer way home. He took the hilly way where he had a view of the village from the hilltop.
A poem he had written in 1816 about angels announcing the birth of the Messiah to the shepherds watching their flocks came to mind. The poem, if set to music, will be a very good carol the following evening, December 24, for his congregation, he mused.
He told Franz Xaver Gruber, an organist, about his idea. With such limited time, Gruber can only come up with a melody to be sung with guitar accompaniment.
Gruber and Joseph Mohr did sing “Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht [Silent Night, Holy Night],” the new composition.
Weeks later Karl Mauracher, a well-known organ builder, repaired the church organ. When Gruber played the composition, Mauracher was so impressed that he took copies of it. Well-known singers of the Rainers and Strassers families heard it and included the song in their Christmas Season Repertoire across Northern Europe. After King Frederick William IV of Prussia heard the Strasser sisters’ performance, he ordered the Cathedral choir to sing it every Christmas Eve.
Today, “Silent Night, Holy Night” is sung in 300 languages. The English and German versions were sung by troops during the Christmas truce of World War I in 1914. Wikipedia noted that the version of melody used now is slow, meditative lullaby or pastorale, differing slightly, particularly in the final strain which was moderato in tune, 6/8 time and siciliana rhythm. Oberndorf bei Salzburg, where the lyrics were written, was declared an intangible cultural heritage by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in 2011.
‘O Holy Night’ first music on radio broadcast
“O Holy Night” is a poem composed by Placide Cappeau, a French commissioner of wine, in 1847 at the request of his parish priest for the Christmas Eve celebration.
Cappeau wrote it on his way to Paris and titled it “Cantique de Noel [Song of Christmas].” Adolphe Charles Adams, a classical musician of Jewish faith, set it to music and the song was performed to an appreciative congregation on Christmas Eve.
When Cappeau left the church to embrace socialism, Church leadership banned the song throughout France. But the French people loved the song and continued to sing it outside the church.
Dr. Jeff Sanders, in the article “O Holy Night in Social Media,” said that during the Franco Prussian War, a French soldier sang “Cantique de Noel.” The Germans responded with a Luther hymn and the soldiers had a 24-hour truce to celebrate Christmas Eve.
When Reginald Fesenden, a former colleague of Thomas Edison, was tinkering with the microphone and telegraph, suddenly his voice was heard by wireless operators on ships and newspaper desks around the world. He was reading the birth of Jesus in Luke Chapter II.
Overwhelmingly surprised, he picked up his violin and played “O Holy Night…fall on your knees!”
‘Hark the herald angels sing’ weds printing press music
“Hark how all the Welkin rings, Glory to the king of kings.” This is the first line of the poem written by Charles Wesley in 1730.
George Whitefield, an English Evangelist, must have thought that Welkin, an old Anglo-Saxon word, which means the “vault of heaven where angels dwell,” was an archaic word. So he removed it without the author’s approval.
The new version was, “Hark the herald angels sing, Glory to the Newborn King,” which the people preferred.
In 1855 Dr. William Cummings, a famous organist, was tasked to set music for Charles Wesley’s poem to celebrate the birth of Christ.
“Festgesang an die Kunstier [Festival ode to artists]” is a music piece written by Felix Mendelssohn, the great German composer in 1840, to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the Guttenberg Printing Press. It was music for technology since Mendelssohn detested composing secular music.
But Cummings’s musical ear knew in his heart the music of Mendelssohn and Wesley’s lyrics can blend beautifully.
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Santiago is a former regional director of the Department of Education National Capital Region. She is currently a faculty member of Mater Redemptoris College in Calauan, Laguna.
Image credits: Wikimedia Commons
1 comment
Are you sure you want to be quoting C.J. Mahaney after all the sin and hypocrisy that has been revealed about him? His hypocrisy caused a large denomination split. Also He was Sr. Pastor of a church that didn’t report to the police an an adult member who molested a group of young boys.
Mahaney is sadly the do as I say vs. what I do person.