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| Adolphe Adam |
During Christmas time, we heard & listened to many songs & carols year after year. Some of them are light-hearted, some of them are joyful, some of them are solemn. The most popular one among them perhaps is the "Silent Night". But none of them is so noble & holy as Cantique de Noel (O Holy Night) by Adolphe Adam.
Adophe Adam was a prolific composer but is chiefly remembered nowadays for the ballet Giselle (吉賽兒) & Le Corsaire (海盗). Giselle is considered one of the five greatest ballets. The ballet tells the story of a peasant girl named Giselle whose ghost, after her premature death, protects her lover from the vengeance of a group of evil female spirits called the Wilis. Le Corsaire is a ballet loosely based on the poem "The Corsair" by Lord Byron (拜倫). Some dances in Giselle & Le Corsaire are used often in ballet competitions for male & female dancers.
O Holy Night has achieved well-deserved popularity. However, most people don’t know the author is Adophe Adam, who was also the composer of Giselle. I have listened to this song many times before in Taiwan & the US. But none like the experience I got in San Francisco, an evening of 1965. I walked around the Union Square & suddenly heard this tune from a nearby cathedral. I just froze & watched the steeple of the church and its background sky with stars. I stood there & finished listening to the music. I don’t know the lyrics at that time but somehow the music touched the bottom of my heart. Music is truly a universal language, a precious part of our civilization. Since then, year after year, I went for my personal business. But as Christmas time comes every year, this tune always reminds me of that moment in San Francisco, my heart is still there.
Here Placido sang the French version & Luciano did the same for English translation in the following weblink:
Placide Cappeau's Cantique de Noël
Minuit, chrétiens, c'est l'heure solennelle,
Où l'Homme-Dieu descendit jusqu'à nous
Pour effacer la tache originelle
Et de Son Père arrêter le courroux.
Le monde entier tressaille d'espérance
En cette nuit qui lui donne un Sauveur.
Peuple à genoux, attends ta délivrance.
Noël, Noël, voici le Rédempteur,
Noël, Noël, voici le Rédempteur !
John Sullivan Dwight's English Version
O holy night! The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of our dear Saviour's birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
'Til He appear'd and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees! O hear the angels' voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born;
O night divine, O night, O night Divine.
PS:
"O Holy Night" ("Cantique de Noël") is a well-known Christmas carol composed by Adolphe Adam in 1847 to the French poem "Minuit, chrétiens" (Midnight, Christians) by Placide Cappeau (1808–1877), a poet, who had been asked by a parish priest to write a Christmas poem. Unitarian minister John Sullivan Dwight, editor of Dwight's Journal of Music, created a singing edition based on Cappeau's French text in 1855. In both the French original and in the familiar English version of the carol, the text reflects on the birth of Jesus and of mankind's redemption. This song is said to have been the first music broadcast on radio.
