Thursday, December 25, 1997
Famous song a perennial favorite
By GREG JAKLEWICZ / AR-N Entertainment Editor
Silent night.
Holy night.
All is calm.
All is bright.
Ten simple words drawn together as lyrics 179 years ago remain
powerful enough today to slow a world moving with a deafening
roar at break-neck speed.
Oh, how we treasure our "Silent Night."
It may be Christmas Eve and the jingle-jangle of Christmas
preparation is almost over. The kids are nestled, all snug in
their beds. The tree is lighted, a fire perhaps crackles across
the room. On the stereo, Bing Crosby sings or a guitarist softly
strums "Silent Night."
Or maybe you're at a candlelight church service, the essence
of melting wax scenting the air and flickering flames casting
shadows across the sanctuary.
However briefly, your crazy life makes sense.
If you step outside and gaze into the starry night, inhaling
deeply of the winter air, you breathe in our world as it was centuries
ago. Simpler. Purer. Full of wonder.
It's the same 'round the world. Mankind is joined by one night,
one star, one child and this wonderful song.
What a gift, this "Silent Night."
MOST POPULAR
"Silent Night" is the world's favorite Christmas
carol.
It is a lullaby, words written by a priest and music by his
friend for performance on guitar. It recounts the birth of Christ
in what local musicologist and Hardin-Simmons University professor
Murl Sickbert calls "a noble simplicity."
Almost 2,000 years ago, a baby boy was born on a winter night.
Above the stable that barely sheltered the new family shone a
single star. This simple setting, a mother cradling her first-born,
has yet to be upstaged. Not by inventions or discoveries, victories
on battlefields or playing fields, man or woman.
Performed for the first time during Christmas Eve Mass in 1818,
"Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!" also has withstood the
boisterous march of time.
Ironically, the song we know as "Silent Night" has
become immensely popular only in the last 50 or so years. When
Father O'Malley sang "Silent Night" in the 1945 movie
"The Bells of St. Mary's," the world at last embraced
a song that like "Joy to the World" was believed "too
rustic, too common" to be sung in church, said Sickbert.
"Bing Crosby singing it in the movie," Sickbert said,
"had a lot to do with its inclusion in most hymnals."
NO MICE
The most often-heard story of how "Silent Night"
came to be is not true.
There was no famine causing both the townsfolk and mice of
tiny Oberndorf, Austria, to grow hungry. The rodents did not set
about chewing the bellows of the church pipe organ, rendering
it unplayable for Christmas Eve midnight Mass. And whether by
divine or 11th-hour inspiration, "Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!"
was not hurriedly composed.
Rather, Sickbert said, it came to be without fanfare, composed
by a curate (clergyman), John Mohr, and an assistant organist,
Franz Gruber, for the traditional folk Mass.
"They created one of the world's most beloved Christmas
carols," said Sickbert. Perhaps it was divine guidance that
inspired them.
Mohr composed six poem-like verses but three -- verses one,
two and six -- have evolved as the most often sung. Gruber chose
the Italian "Siciliana" meter, a common tempo inspired
by a dance from the island of Sicily, Sickbert said. However,
yodel-like phrases give the song a Germanic feel.
While the original score has been lost, five later copies survive.
The original church is gone, too, but on the church that replaced
it is a plaque honoring the two men.
SIMPLICITY
The wonder of "Silent Night" is its simplicity. It
tells the story of Christ's birth in a way, Sickbert said, that
can be directly translated into any language, thus understood
by Christians around the world.
While American music is immensely popular worldwide, even a
simple holiday pop song like Crosby's "White Christmas"
proves difficult to understand in places where snow never has
fallen.
"Silent Night" is found on most holiday recordings,
from choral presentations to folk, jazz, blues and even reggae
interpretations, to today's popular electronically driven arrangements
of Mannheim Steamroller. Still, even chief Steamroller Chip Davis
has kept his group's take on "Silent Night" soft and
airy.
However, possibly the best versions are those quietly sung
or played. Those that for a few minutes render the world's Christmas
as silent, calm and bright as one 2,000 years ago.
EDITOR'S NOTE: To hear different versions of "Silent Night,"
call NewsLine at 676-2255 and enter Category 2268.
Send a Letter to the Editor about This
Story | Start or Join A Discussion about This Story
Send the URL (Address) of This Story
to A Friend:
Copyright ©1997,
Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps Publications
|
