Product Description
Duration: 4:56. Score; 5 pg., 44 ms. Solo part: 2 pg. Piano part: 3 pg.
Cantique de Noël
The
French composer Adolphe Adam was already famous as a composer of many
successful ballets and operas. Then, in the 1840s he wrote his most famous
work - O Holy Night. The original song title was Minuit Chretiens or Cantique
de Noël. Placide Cappeau provided
the original song lyrics. The song was first performed in Roquemaure by the
opera singer Emily Laurey at midnight mass in 1847. It became very popular
among the French, much the way that Silent Night was famous elsewhere. In the
1850s John S. Dwight, a Unitarian minister and music teacher translated the
song into English.
Adolphe Adam
In
his younger years, Adam studied organ and composition at the Paris
Conservatoire. He also played the timpani in the Conservatoire orchestra. Adam used
his savings and borrowed money to open a new opera house - the fourth opera
house in Paris in 1847. Unfortunately, the Revolution of 1848 forced him to close.
He taught composition at the Paris Conservatoire from 1849 until his death in 1856.
Placide Cappeau
The
poet Cappeau was an advocate of the French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire. Voltaire was renowned for criticizing the Catholic
church, religious intolerance, and dogma in general. Consequently, Cappeau made
the Redeemer figure in his song a kind of reformer of injustices, in particular,
the problem of original sin. To begin with, people recognized Cappeaus
theology as eccentric, probably even doubtful.
Theology
In
the earlier form of Minuit, the Christ
figure descends to intervene with His Fathers plan to punish mankind. Traditional doctrine pronounces that Christ
came from love, not to intervene. This version also declares that Christ appeared
to expunge the original sin of Adam. Cappeau removed this part from his poem years
later, because he just didnt believe it. He preferred to portray Christ as the reformer
of disparity and unfairness. Before long, the writer/politician Alphonse de
Lamartine referred to the Minuit as the "the Marseillaise of
religion." Most French churchmen agreed with this idea but certainly did not
consider it a tribute.
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