Stille Nacht--Dresden Choir.
This
morning at 10:45 the Tree of Life
Unitarian Universalist Choir will present its annual winter holiday concert in McHenry. This year the theme is A
Sharing of Music and Poetry. The
choir under the direction of Cassandra Vohs-Demann and accompanied by Billy Seger will hit all the seasonal notes including secular favorites, Chanukah, Solstice, and
of course Advent and Christmas carols interspersed with
original poetry read by the Congregation’s several bards. It promises to be a
magical occasion.
My poem Let
Us Be That Stable will be pared with the most beloved of all carols, Silent
Night.
Two hundred and one years ago Stille
Nacht, heilige Nacht was first performed
at St. Nicholas parish church in the
village Oberndorf on the Salzach River in the Austrian Empire. Today Silent
Night is by far the most popular traditional Christmas carol in the English
speaking world, and has been translated
from the original German into more
than 140 languages. It has been recorded by choirs, orchestras, and solo musicians in every possible genre
but Bing Crosby’s 1935 version is the bestselling solo
rendition of all time.
A young priest, Father Joseph Mohr, wrote a poem
in 1816 at Mariapfarr, the hometown
of his father in the Salzburg Lungau
region. Two years later he had been
posted as parish priest to the
Oberndorf. Circumstances of the creation
of the song are hazy but the commonly
told story goes like this.
Mohr was
in need of a song for his Christmas Eve
mass, but the church organ was
damaged by a flood. He needed something simple that could be sung
to his guitar. He thought of his poem and asked his organist
Franz Xaver Gruber to set it to
music. The result was a lovely, simple
tune that was easy to sing and was more of a lullaby to the infant Jesus
than the triumphant announcement carols commonly
sung on Christmas Eve.
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Stille Nacht composer Franz Gruber.
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The song
charmed Karl Mauracher, an organ builder who serviced the
instrument at the Oberndorf church, who copied the song and introduced it to
two travelling families of folk singers, the Strassers and the Rainers
who were singing it in their shows in 1819.
The Rainers once performed the song for audience that included Emperor Franz I of Austria and Czar Alexander I
of Russia. They also introduced the song to America
in an 1839 concert in New York City.
The first edition of the song was published by Friese in 1833 in a collection of Four Genuine Tyrolean Songs.
The song
was already beloved in the German speaking countries and was spreading across Europe.
Although Gruber was generally acknowledged
as composer some people could not believe it could have been written by such a rustic provincial and attributed it variously to Haydn, Mozart, or Beethoven. Mohr’s role as lyricist was largely forgotten outside
stories told around Oberndorf. But in
1995 a manuscript by Gruber dating
to around 1820 was discovered and authenticated confirming Mohr as the
author.
In 1859,
the Episcopal priest John Freeman Young
of Trinity Church in New York City, wrote and published the English translation that is most
frequently sung today, translated from three of Mohr's original six
verses. His version of the melody varied
slightly from Gruber’s original. Soon
the song was as popular in English speaking countries as it was in German.
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Singing Stille Nacht and Silent Night drew British and German enemies out of the trenches for the legendary Christmas Truce of 1914.
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In 1914
in the first months of World War I
British and German troops facing
each other in France heard each
other sing the carol in their own trenches
and were drawn to meet and fraternize in no man’s land. For two days
troops mingled, sang, ate together, exchanged small gifts including Christmas
trees from the Germans, and even played games of football (soccer). The famous Christmas Truce ended when the high
commands on both sides declared it was mutiny
and threatened to shoot troops
who did not return to belligerence.
Today we
feature a German choral rendition by
the Dresden Choir.
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A Renaissance triparch altar painting of the Nativity.
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My poem Let
Us Be That Stable was inspired by traditional nativity scenes in art and
family crèches. It was first read at a Christmas Eve service at the old Congregational Unitarian Church in Woodstock more than 20 years ago and
was included in my 2004 collection of poetry, We Build Temples in the Heart. It is my most widely reproduced poem and has frequently been used in Unitarian Universalist and other worships settings since.
Let
Us Be That Stable
Today, let us be that stable
Let us be the place
that welcomes at last
the weary and rejected,
the pilgrim stranger,
the coming life.
Let not the frigid winds that pierce
our inadequate walls,
or our mildewed hay,
or the fetid leavings of our cattle
shame us from our beckoning.
Let our outstretched arms
be a manger
so that the infant hope,
swaddled in love,
may have a place to lie.
Let a cold beacon
shine down upon us
from a solstice sky
to guide to us
the seekers who will come.
Let the lowly Shepard
and all who abide
in the fields of their labors
lay down their crooks
and come to us.
Let the seers, sages, and potentates
of every land
traverse the shifting dunes
the rushing rivers,
and the stony crags
to seek our rude frame.
Let herdsmen and high lords
kneel together
under our thatched roof
to lay their gifts
before Wonder.
Today, let us be that stable.
—Patrick Murfin
