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- Jul 26, 2018
O Holy Night
Thanks to Jeff Westover at https://mymerrychristmas.com
O Holy Night is unlikely Christmas song for a number of reasons. In 1847, Placide Cappeau de Roquemaure, who was better known for his poetry than for his piousness, was asked by his parish priest asked him to pen a poem for Christmas mass. While traveling he wrote"Cantique de Noel."
Believing his poem could be set to music, Roquemaure gave his words to Adolphe Charles Adams, a man of Jewish ancestry, for a day Adams didn't celebrate about a man Adams did not view as the son of God. Adams' beautiful finished work pleased both poet and priest. The song was performed just three weeks later at a Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.
Initially, "Cantique de Noel" was wholeheartedly accepted by the church in France. But when Roquemaure left the church and church leaders discovered that Adolphe Adams was a Jew, the
heads of the French Catholic church of the time deemed "Cantique de Noel" as unfit for church services because of its lack of musical taste and "total absence of the spirit of religion."
French people did not agree, as they showed by continuing to sing it. It became and remains a popular part of French culture.
About ten years later, John Sullivan Dwight, an American Abolitionist discovered the song and loved it not only for telling the story of Christ but for the powerful lessons taught in verse 3 of the hymn:
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.
Dwight had the poem translated into English and published in his magazine where it quickly found favor in America, especially in the North.
Years later on Christmas Eve 1906, a man named Reginald Fessenden — a 33-year-old university professor and former chief chemist for Thomas Edison spoke into a microphone and, for the first time in history, a man's voice was broadcast over the airwaves, reading the Christmas Story from the Gospel of Luke. After Fessenden spoke, the first music ever played over the radio airwaves was "O Holy Night".
Thanks to Jeff Westover at https://mymerrychristmas.com
O Holy Night is unlikely Christmas song for a number of reasons. In 1847, Placide Cappeau de Roquemaure, who was better known for his poetry than for his piousness, was asked by his parish priest asked him to pen a poem for Christmas mass. While traveling he wrote"Cantique de Noel."
Believing his poem could be set to music, Roquemaure gave his words to Adolphe Charles Adams, a man of Jewish ancestry, for a day Adams didn't celebrate about a man Adams did not view as the son of God. Adams' beautiful finished work pleased both poet and priest. The song was performed just three weeks later at a Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.
Initially, "Cantique de Noel" was wholeheartedly accepted by the church in France. But when Roquemaure left the church and church leaders discovered that Adolphe Adams was a Jew, the
heads of the French Catholic church of the time deemed "Cantique de Noel" as unfit for church services because of its lack of musical taste and "total absence of the spirit of religion."
French people did not agree, as they showed by continuing to sing it. It became and remains a popular part of French culture.
About ten years later, John Sullivan Dwight, an American Abolitionist discovered the song and loved it not only for telling the story of Christ but for the powerful lessons taught in verse 3 of the hymn:
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.
Dwight had the poem translated into English and published in his magazine where it quickly found favor in America, especially in the North.
Years later on Christmas Eve 1906, a man named Reginald Fessenden — a 33-year-old university professor and former chief chemist for Thomas Edison spoke into a microphone and, for the first time in history, a man's voice was broadcast over the airwaves, reading the Christmas Story from the Gospel of Luke. After Fessenden spoke, the first music ever played over the radio airwaves was "O Holy Night".
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