SKU: A0.721051

Cantique de Noel, or O Holy Night. Adolph Adam composed this beautiful music to a poem by Placide Cappeau, written to celebrate the renovation of the Church organ in Roquemaure, in Southern France.

This arrangement is for Violin, Voila, Cello and Piano, and is in C major.

Playing time 6 minutes.

Arranged by Anne Christopherson at https://www.music-scores.com

SKU: A0.721050

Cantique de Noel, or O Holy Night. Adolph Adam composed this beautiful music to a poem by Placide Cappeau, written to celebrate the renovation of the Church organ in Roquemaure, in Southern France.

This arrangement is for Violin, Voila, Cello and Piano, and is in D major.

Playing time 6 minutes.

Arranged by Anne Christopherson at https://www.music-scores.com

SKU: A0.548651

A unique arrangement of Jingle Bells arranged for a piano quartet (piano, violin, viola, cello, and optional sleigh bells). The first verses are based on the traditional version. After an abrupt modulation, the third verse explores an augmentation canon, while the viola pursues a wild sleigh ride passage. Meanwhile, the tune is fragmented and sequenced in the piano. It gets wild but straightens out for the final refrain. Score: 7 pg, 68 ms. String parts: 2 pg. Sleighbell part: 1 pg. Piano part: 3 pg.

Jingle Bells is perhaps the most famous song in American music history. James L. Pierpont published the song One Horse Open Sleigh in the late 1850s. Since its introduction, people began to insist that Pierpont wrote it for a Sunday school choir. However, it seems unlikely that such a secular song would be considered appropriate during that historical period for Sunday school.

Christmas Repertoire

Pierpont wrote the song for the Thanksgiving holidays, but over time people began to think of it more as a Christmas song. Some choirs adopted it as part of their Christmas repertoire in the 1860s and 1870s. Jingle Bells was first recorded in 1889 on a wax cylinder.

Origins

No one knows where Pierpont composed the song. One theory suggests he wrote it in Medford Massachusetts in 1850. Sleigh races were certainly popular in 19th-century Massachusetts. To this day, a commemorative placard appears in Medford Square claiming that it is the birthplace of Jingle Bells. Others suggest that he wrote it in Savannah, Georgia where he was an organist and music director at the Unitarian Church. This theory gained support from the copyright date of 1857. We know he was living in Savannah by then.

Traffic Signals

Horse-drawn sleighs are relatively quiet in the snow. Consequently, horses were usually equipped with bell-laden straps so as to avoid accidents at blind intersections. Sleigh drivers in 19th Century New England were constantly vigilant, listening for the sounds of approaching horse-drawn sleighs. The tune imitates the rhythm that the trotting horse bells produce.

Social Context

Jingle Bells was sung as a drinking song at local revelries: during the song, folks would rhythmically jingle the ice in their glasses. A sleigh ride allowed couples to be alone together. The term Jingle bells is a poetic descriptive adjective referring specifically to the more accurate term sleigh bells. In many arrangements, sleigh bells accentuate the rhythm during the song's chorus. 

 

SKU: A0.548706

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 trendy among the French, much like Silent Night was famous elsewhere. In 1850, John S. Dwight, a Unitarian minister and music teacher, translated the song into English.  

Adolphe Adam

Adam studied organ and composition at the Paris Conservatoire in his younger years. 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 he died 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, particularly 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 humanity. Traditional doctrine pronounces that Christ came from love, not to intervene. This version also declares that Christ appeared to delete the original sin of Adam. Cappeau removed this part from his poem years later because he didn't believe it. He preferred to portray Christ as the reformer of disparity and unfairness. Before long, the writer/politician Alphonse de Lamartine called the Minuit the Marseillaise of religion. Most French churchmen agreed with this idea but did not consider it a tribute.