Mayor Woodford: Please rise for the invocation, which will be delivered by Alder Firkus.
Alderperson Brad Firkus (District 3): Thank you, Mayor. Music is one of my favorite parts of this time of year. Christmas music has been a state—a family staple for as long as I can remember, whether it was my grandma’s Christmas albums or the tapes and CDs my mom played through the years. My favorite Christmas song for—as an adult, especially as life gets a little more hectic and busy, is Oh Holy Night. There’s many renditions of it that have been recorded, but in it’s most traditional setting it sonically fits right in at a midnight Christmas Mass being sung by a choir over a pipe organ, especially with the very recognizable end of that first verse. I like it because it’s a calming sound song for a hectic time of year, but this nearly 180-year-old song has been along—has had a long, strange journey to becoming a Christmas staple.
O Holy Night’s start—story starts in 1840s France when it was written to commemorate the remodeling of a church. A local poet Placide Capeau wrote the lyrics and was so pleased with what he had wrote, he reached out to a friend and composer, Adolphe Adam, to compose music to accompany his poem. The end result was the song “Cantique de Noel”.
While the song did become popular by the standards of its time, the lyrics were seen as rather confrontational, and it’s sharp language around slavery in its third verse was taken as being critical of the French church. For reference, the third verse starts “Truly he taught us to love one another. His law is love. His gospel is peace. Chains shall he break. For the slave is our brother, and in His name all oppression shall cease.” The Church of France would soon ban the song from future services, and even to this day, many renditions leave out this verse and revisit the end of the first verse again. Capeau would be branded an atheist, leave the church, and later join France’s socialist movement. For his contributions Adam would be labeled a Jew and be saddled with all the antisemitic baggage this substantiated claim carried in the 19th century Europe.
Despite the controversy at home, the song became quite popular in France and beyond. It would make its way to America in the 1850s were John Sullivan Dwight would translate it to English and name his version, “O Holy Night”. The same lyrics that made it a pariah at home made O Holy Night a popular protest song in the abolition movement of the 1850s and 60s.
An incident on Christmas Eve in 1871 though during the Franco Prussian war, would start to change its perception in France. During a pause in fighting, a French soldier left his position and broke out in a rendition of Cantique de Noel. In response, a German soldier sang, “From heaven above, here I come.” Both sides would pause fighting for 24 hours to allow each side to celebrate Christmas. The story of this event started to thaw the song’s reputation at home.
O Holy Night would continue to slowly gain broader acceptance into the 20th century. There was still some resistance to it, but it would be part of other positive moments too, such as Reginald Fessenden’s playing of it on his violin on Christmas Eve 1906 as he became the first person to transmit voice and music through the airwaves.
The next few weeks contain many different holidays, and I hope you all get to enjoy the ones you celebrate, spending quality time with friends and family, enjoying good food and cherished traditions, and after the last guest has left, or you return home from festivities, or once the kids are in bed, that you all have time to rest and relax with a book, a movie or maybe a little music, and may you have a peaceful and happy holidays and peace and love in the new year.
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