SKU: HX.393716

SKU: HX.393699

SKU: A0.1443504

Arranged for easy Bb clarinet (all lower register) in the key of D. A backing track is provided on YouTube to help with the rhythms in the chorus: https://youtu.be/nGvCSRf5fV0.

SKU: A0.548683

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 1840’s 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 1850’s 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 Cappeau’s theology as eccentric, probably even doubtful.

Theology

In the earlier form of Minuit, the Christ figure descends to intervene with His Father’s 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 him poem years later, because he just didn’t 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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SKU: A0.548731

Very strong arrangement for Easter.

Duration: 2:48. 84 ms.

Score: 7 pg. Solo part 1 pg. piano part 3 pg.

Morning Has Broken is a popular and well-known Christian hymn first published in 1931. It has words by English author Eleanor Farjeon and was inspired by the village of Alfriston in East Sussex, then set to a traditional Scottish Gaelic tune known as Bunessan [1] (it shares this tune with the 19th century Christmas Carol Child in the Manger[2]). It is often sung in children's services and in Funeral services.[3]

English pop musician and folk singer Cat Stevens included a version on his 1971 album Teaser and the Firecat. The song became identified with Stevens due to the popularity of this recording. It reached number six on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, number one on the U.S. easy listening chartin 1972,[4] and number four on the Canadian RPM Magazine charts.

The hymn originally appeared in the second edition of Songs of Praise (published in 1931), to the tune Bunessan, composed in the Scottish Islands. In Songs of Praise Discussed, the editor, Percy Dearmer, explains that as there was need for a hymn to give thanks for each day, English poet and children's author Eleanor Farjeon had been asked to make a poem to fit the lovely Scottish tune. A slight variation on the original hymn, also written by Eleanor Farjeon, can be found in the form of a poem contributed to the anthology Children's Bells, under Farjeon's new title, A Morning Song (For the First Day of Spring), published by Oxford University Press in 1957. The song is noted in 9/4 time but with a 3/4 feel.

Bunessan had been found in L. McBean's Songs and Hymns of the Gael, published in 1900.[5] Before Farjeon's words, the tune was used as a Christmas carol, which began Child in the manger, Infant of Mary, translated from the Scottish Gaelic lyrics written by Mary MacDonald. The English-language Roman Catholic hymnal also uses the tune for the James Quinn hymns, Christ Be Beside Me and This Day God Gives Me, both of which were adapted from the traditional Irish hymn St. Patrick's Breastplate. Another Christian hymn, Baptized In Water, borrows the tune. -Wikipedia