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Musical Question - Christmas, 1914

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CHRISTMAS 1914
CHRISTMAS IN THE TRENCHES

Louie Roy	21 Dec 02 - 11:52 AM
George Seto - af221@chebucto.ns.ca	21 Dec 02 - 12:01 PM
kendall	21 Dec 02 - 01:42 PM
Gareth	21 Dec 02 - 01:54 PM
Louie Roy	21 Dec 02 - 11:38 PM
Louie Roy	22 Dec 02 - 03:51 PM
Kim C	23 Dec 02 - 12:14 PM
BuckMulligan	23 Dec 02 - 12:34 PM
Mark Clark	23 Dec 02 - 01:03 PM
UB Ed	23 Dec 02 - 01:59 PM
Don Firth	23 Dec 02 - 04:33 PM
GUEST,Sean	24 Dec 03 - 11:42 AM
GUEST,Colonel Chinstrap	24 Dec 03 - 12:24 PM
DMcG	24 Dec 03 - 12:48 PM

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Subject: Musical Question
From: Louie Roy
Date: 21 Dec 02 - 11:52 AM

What Christmas Carol actually stopped WW1 between the Germans and the British in 1914 on Xmas eve for 32 hours and 30 minutes by mutual consent from both sides?????????? Mudcatters answer tomorrow Louie Roy

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Subject: RE: Musical Question
From: George Seto - af221@chebucto.ns.ca
Date: 21 Dec 02 - 12:01 PM

Perhaps Silent Night! Still Nacht!?

John McCutcheon's Christmas in the Trenches

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Subject: RE: Musical Question
From: kendall
Date: 21 Dec 02 - 01:42 PM

Christmas in the trenches

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Subject: RE: Musical Question
From: Gareth
Date: 21 Dec 02 - 01:54 PM

Or (at the risk of seeming lighthearted on a seroius question), to quote from "Oh, Oh, Oh, What a loverly War"

First Tommy " Someones Singing "

Second Tommy " It'll be them Welsh B*****ds in the next Trench "

Gareth

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Subject: RE: Musical Question
From: Louie Roy
Date: 21 Dec 02 - 11:38 PM

refresh

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Subject: RE: Musical Question
From: Louie Roy
Date: 22 Dec 02 - 03:51 PM

George Seto,you are absolutely correct,but there is more to the story.Silent Night is the most popular Xmas Carol in the world and at one time was called the Carol that stopped a war.This Carol was composed entirely on Xmas Eve in 1818 by a priest Father Josef Mohr who was assigned to the ST Nicholas Church at Oberndorf Austria.The Salzack river flowed by the church and the moisture from the river had rusted the organ to the point it was inoperatable.Father Mohr was faced with with a Xmas Eve service with no music.He wrote a three-- six line stanzas of poetry each line beginning with the words STILLE NACHT,HEILIGE NACHT and gave it to his organist Franz Gruber and asked him to write the music so the choir could sing it that evening at the services accompanied by a stringed instrument.The song was so simple it took Gruber only about an hour to set it to music.At the service Father Mohr sang Tenor and Gruber played the stringed instrument and sang Bass.After each stanza was sung in two parts the choir repeated the last two lines in four part harmony.All Father Mohr and Gruber knew was they had got through an awkward situation that Xmas Eve.Neither realized they had achived immortality.It was sung in German until 1867 when Reverend John Freeman Young the Episcopal Bishop Of Florida transalated it to English.On December 24 1914 on the western front in WW1 the British and the Germans were engaged in a fierce battle and during a lull in the gun fire the British heard the Germans singing STILLE NACHT HEILIGE NACHT and the British responded with Silent Night Holy Night The British stuck up a sign with the words Merry Xmas and the Germans responded with alike wise sign.Then two British soldiers jumped out of the trenches onto the Parepet with a white flag and their arms above their head and immediately two German soldiers did the same.They met in the middle of no mans land and shuck hands.Then all the soldiers from both sides got out of the trenches and celebrated Xmas sitting around a camp fire in the middle of no mans land singing songs,exchanging small gifts such as chocolate bars,buttons,badges ,tins of beef and sharing pictures.Many stories were told and songs were sang that night but Silent Night was the main one So from midnite December 24 uuntil 8.30 AM December 26 by mutual agreement a truce was agreed on.Most of these facts were obtained from a short story written by Victor M Parchin an ordained minister in Tulsa Oklahoma who had done many hours of research and through his research he acquired a diary belonging to Frank Richards a British soldier who was a party to this event and lived to document it in his diary.I hope that one of our German Mudcatters or someone with the knowledge of the German language will write the words to this ong in German the way it was originally written and post it for the rest of us to see Louie Roy

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Subject: RE: Musical Question
From: Kim C
Date: 23 Dec 02 - 12:14 PM

Oh thanks a lot Louie for makin me CRY......... ;-)

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Subject: RE: Musical Question
From: BuckMulligan
Date: 23 Dec 02 - 12:34 PM

as Kendall points out above, John McCutcheon's "Christmas in the Trenches" tells this tale beautifully.

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Subject: RE: Musical Question
From: Mark Clark
Date: 23 Dec 02 - 01:03 PM

Here is a pdf file of Stille Nacht from the Mutopia Project. The Mutopia project is the musical equivalent of the Project Gutenberg. All musical scores are prepared using the GNU LilyPond system for musical typesetting.

- Mark

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Subject: RE: Musical Question
From: UB Ed
Date: 23 Dec 02 - 01:59 PM

An absolute Xmas favorite! Thanks Louie!

Ed

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Subject: RE: Musical Question
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Dec 02 - 04:33 PM

What I heard (which may be apocryphal) was that disaster had occurred just before the Christmas service. Mice had chewed holes in the leather bellows that powered the organ, so the organ was out of commission. The instrumental accompaniment for the evening's service was a guitar.

Hmm. Before hitting "Submit," I googled a bit and discovered THIS

Don Firth

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Subject: RE: Musical Question
From: GUEST,Sean
Date: 24 Dec 03 - 11:42 AM

I'm sorry to bother you, but I have been searching everywhere for a song by Eric Bogle. I had the tape of the song, but I cannot find it anywhere. I do a lot of singing, and there is a song that I would like the words for if you know of anywhere I can find them.

The chorus goes something like this:
Oh silent night, no cannons roar
A king is born of peace forever more
alls calm alls bright, all brothers hand in hand
a soldiers song of peace from no man's land

The song is basically about a truce on Christmas day and the German soldier who was singing is actually killed the day after Christmas after a truce. Any help would be appreciated. I thought the song was called No mans Land, but it seems that is Willie McBride.

Enjoy your holiday. Any help is appreciated:)

Please email me at easn@aol.com if you know where I can find this song. Thank you,

Sean

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Subject: RE: Musical Question
From: GUEST,Colonel Chinstrap
Date: 24 Dec 03 - 12:24 PM

Regarding the Christmas "truce" of WW1, initiated by the singing of the German troops, there has been bona fide details covered in recent correspondence in the "Daily Telegraph" (UK) these past ten days.

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Subject: RE: Musical Question
From: DMcG
Date: 24 Dec 03 - 12:48 PM

Sorry to spoil a good story, but according to the "Shorter New Oxford Book of Carols":

... the idea that this [the composition and playing of the carol] was because the organ had suddenly broken down seems to be a later accretion to the story. What Mohr and Gruber did was in no way out of the ordinary - except that they produced a carol of Schubertian charm which has captivated listeners from that first performance on.

I have also read that the lyrics were composed as a poem in 1816 and it is simply the setting of it to music that happened on Christmas Eve 1818.

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