Born on a cold night in the chapel of a small Austrian village, Silent Night, the world’s most famous Christmas carol, is celebrating its 190th anniversary.
The song, known as Stille Nacht in the original German, was first performed on December 24, 1818, in the tiny hamlet of Oberndorf, as a local assistant priest, Joseph Mohr, sought to comfort his flock, racked by poverty and misery in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars.
"He asked his friend Franz Xaver Gruber, a teacher, to compose the music for six verses he had written two years prior, and they performed the song together at mass with the help of a simple guitar," says Renate Ebeling-Winkler, a historian and expert on the topic.
The song was an immediate success but remained a secret for many years, until an organ delivery man from Tyrol took note of it on his way through the village.
It soon became a favorite with Tyrolean singers, traveling up and down the continent in the winter to earn money.
"Admired for its resistance to Napoleon, Tyrol was very popular with allied countries and its best singers, like the Rainer family, were world stars," said Ebeling-Winkler.
These artists gave Silent Night worldwide fame, performing it at the royal court in London in 1827, in Moscow in 1831 and in New York in 1839.
By this time, its origins had been largely forgotten and Mohr died in 1848 without ever knowing of his song’s success.
Franz Xaver Gruber only found out about it in 1854 when the carol was almost attributed to Michael Haydn, the brother of famed composer Joseph Haydn.
But Silent Night had already made its way into German school books and into the Catholic and Protestant churches.
Often seen as the quintessential Christmas carol, it has been translated into more than 330 languages, bridging social, religious and cultural divides and contributing to a brief truce in the trenches of World War I on Christmas Eve IN 1914.
Every year, thousands of tourists, many from Asia, travel to the little village to take part in a Christmas Eve ceremony in front of the small chapel.
This year, 190 years after the first performance, the Silent Night ceremony will again be held in the afternoon, and broadcast live on the Internet.
世界最著名的圣誕歌曲《平安夜》（Silent Night 歌詞）日前迎來其190歲的生日。這首歌在一個寒冷的夜晚誕生于奧地利一個小村莊的教堂。
《平安夜》原名是德文的Stille Nacht，這首歌于1818年12月24日在（奧地利的）歐本朵夫小村莊首度被演唱，當時教堂助理牧師穆爾用這首歌來撫慰在拿破侖戰爭后飽受貧窮和悲慘生活之苦的信眾們。
研究這一問題的專家、歷史學家里內特•艾柏林-溫克勒說：“當時穆爾讓他的朋友、弗蘭茲•艾克塞瓦•格魯伯老師為他兩年前所寫的六段詩文譜曲，之后大家在做彌撒時一起練唱了這首歌，不過當時只有吉他伴奏。”
這首歌一舉成功，但很多年來一直不為外界所知，直到一名從提洛爾來送管風琴的人路過村莊時，才注意到了這首歌。
這首歌很快成為提洛爾賣藝者們的最愛，這些賣藝者在冬天常奔忙于歐洲各地演唱賺錢。
艾柏林-溫克勒說：“提洛爾因抵御拿破侖的侵略而受到尊敬，在同盟國享有較高聲望，而當地的一些頂級歌手如Rainer家族，則是世界級的歌星。”
正是這些藝人讓《平安夜》成為享譽全球的經典歌曲，他們分別于1827年、1831年和1839年前往英國倫敦的王室、莫斯科和紐約演出。
直到那個時候，這首歌的始創人已幾乎被遺忘，穆爾于1848年去世，死前他都不知道他的作品獲得了如此成功。
弗蘭茲•艾克塞瓦•格魯伯也是到了1854年才為人所知，當時這首歌差點被認為是著名作曲家約瑟夫•海頓的弟弟邁克爾•海頓所創作。
但此時《平安夜》已經進入了德國學校的課本，并且已開始在天主教和基督教教堂中傳唱。
《平安夜》一直被視為圣誕經典歌曲，并已被翻譯成330多種語言。這首歌消除了社會、宗教以及文化的分歧，在1914年“一戰”的圣誕節前夜，一首《平安夜》平息了戰壕中的戰火，交戰雙方達成圣誕臨時休戰協定。
每年圣誕節，都會有大批游客（很多來自亞洲）來到歐本朵夫村莊，參加在教堂前舉行的平安夜吟唱儀式。
今年是《平安夜》誕生190周年，今年的“平安夜”吟唱儀式還將于下午舉行，同時在互聯網上直播。
Lyrics
Silent night, holy night
All is calm, all is bright
Round your Virgin Mother and Child
Holy Infant so tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace
Sleep in heavenly peace
Silent night, holy night
Son of God, love's pure light
Radiant beams from Thy holy face
With the dawn of redeeming grace
Christ, the Saviour is born
Christ, the Saviour is born
(Silent night, Holy night
Shepherds quake at the sight
Glories stream from Heaven afar
Heavenly hosts sing Hallelujah
Christ, the Savior is born
Christ, the Savior is born) |
大學英語---