1.
Christmas carol
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A Christmas carol is a carol whose lyrics are on the theme of Christmas, and which is traditionally sung on Christmas itself or during the surrounding holiday season. Christmas carols may be regarded as a subset of the category of Christmas music. The first known Christmas hymns may be traced to 4th century Rome, Latin hymns such as Veni redemptor gentium, written by Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan, were austere statements of the theological doctrine of the Incarnation in opposition to Arianism. Corde natus ex Parentis by the Spanish poet Prudentius is still sung in churches today. In the 9th and 10th centuries, the Christmas Sequence or Prose was introduced in Northern European monasteries, in the 12th century the Parisian monk Adam of St. Victor began to derive music from popular songs, introducing something closer to the traditional Christmas carol. In the 13th century, in France, Germany, and particularly, Italy, the songs we know specifically as carols were originally communal songs sung during celebrations like harvest tide as well as Christmas. It was only later that carols begun to be sung in church, many carols which have gained popularity today were printed in Piae Cantiones, a collection of late medieval Latin songs which was first published in 1582. Early, Latin forms of such as Christ was born on Christmas Day, Good Christian Men, Rejoice. Adeste Fideles appears in its current form in the mid-18th century, the origin of the tune is disputed. Carols gained in popularity after the Reformation in the countries where Protestant churches gained prominence and this was a consequence of the fact that the Lutheran reformation warmly welcomed music. The publication of Christmas music books in the 19th century helped to widen the appeal of carols. The first appearance in print of God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen, The First Noel, I Saw Three Ships, the Herald Angels Sing was in Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern by William Sandys. The publication in 1871 of Christmas Carols, New and Old by Henry Ramsden Bramley, in 1916, Charles Lewis Hutchins published Carols Old and Carols New, a scholarly collection which suffered from a short print run and is consequently rarely available today. The singing of carols was further popularised in the 20th century when OUP published one of the most popular books in the English-speaking world. First published in 1961 and edited by David Willcocks and Reginald Jacques, today carols are regularly sung at Christian religious services. Some compositions have words that are not of a religious theme. For example, the 16th century song A Bone, God Wot. appears to be a wassailing song, as recently as 1865, Christmas-related lyrics were adopted for the traditional English folk song Greensleeves, becoming the internationally popular Christmas carol “What Child is This. ”. It is not clear whether the word derives from the French carole or the Latin carula meaning a circular dance
2.
Silent-Night-Chapel
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It stands in place of the former St. Nicholas Church, where on 24 December 1818 the Christmas carol was performed for the first time. This led to the conclusion that the whole place Oberndorf, including the church of St. Nicholas to build about 800 m upstream again. Of refurbishment of damaged St. Thus, the old church was demolished in 1913 and only remembered a debris cone at the historical origin of the now-famous Christmas song far. The 100th anniversary of the song in December 1918 fell into the time immediately after the World War I. The more wanted to put the message of peace Mohr and Gruber, adopted in 1924, but construction of a memorial chapel was under the difficult conditions slowly in the phase of realization. Ultimately, the construction was completed on August 15,1937, meanwhile, the Memorial Chapel was the visible symbol of the song Silent Night. Every year, around the Memorial Chapel and Museum beside it, especially in the Christmas, there are thousands of visitors from around the world. On the 24th of December, every year by 17,00, since 2002, this celebration is transmitted by means of the local webcam on the Internet. The chapel is an octagon in form with a helmet and a lantern. The arched windows were created in 1935 by the Tyrolean Stained Glass, the high altar with a relief Nativity is the sculptor Hermann Hutter from 1915. A Predellenrelief Adoration of the Magi, Crucifixion, escape from Egypt is the sculptor Max Domenig from 1936, replica models of the Silent Night Chapel exist in the leisure park Mini Mundus at Klagenfurt in Carinthia and the model park Mönichkirchen in Lower Austria. Furthermore, there is a 1,1 scale replica in Frankenmuth in the U. S. state of Michigan, the historical monuments of Austria, Salzburg. Bundesdenkmalamt, Verlag Anton Schroll & Co, Vienna,1986, ISBN 3-7031-0599-2, page 290 Template, Weblink Panoramic Views Silent Night Chapel the city of Oberndorf Silent Night website
3.
Joseph Mohr
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Josephus Franciscus Mohr, sometimes spelt Josef was an Austrian Roman Catholic priest and writer, who wrote the words to the Christmas carol Silent Night. Mohr was born in Salzburg on December 11,1792, to an unmarried embroiderer, Anna Schoiberin, and Franz Mohr, a soldier and deserter. The ancestors on his fathers side came from the town of Mariapfarr in the mountainous Lungau region south of Salzburg, as the parents were unmarried, Joseph received the name of his godfather, according to custom. Johann Nepomuk Hiernle, vicar and leader of music at Salzburg Cathedral, enabled Mohr to have an education, as a boy, Mohr would serve simultaneously as a singer and violinist in the choirs of the University Church and at the Benedictine monastery church of St. Peter. From 1808 to 1810, Mohr studied at the Benedictine monastery of Kremsmünster in the province of Upper Austria and he then returned to Salzburg to attend the Lyceum school, and in 1811, he entered the seminary. Since he was of illegitimate birth, a dispensation was required in those days for him to attend seminary. On August 21,1815, Mohr graduated and was ordained as a priest, in the fall of 1815, Mohr was asked to provide temporary help in the village of Ramsau near Berchtesgaden. Mohr then served as assistant priest in Mariapfarr and it was during this time, in 1816, that he penned the words to Silent Night in Mariapfarr. Poor health forced him to return to Salzburg in the summer of 1817, after a short recuperation he began serving as an assistant priest at St. Nicholas in Oberndorf, where he made the acquaintance of Franz Gruber, schoolteacher in neighbouring Arnsdorf. On a cold Christmas Eve in 1818, Mohr walked the three kilometres from his home in Oberndorf bei Salzburg to visit his friend Franz Xaver Gruber in the town of Arnsdorf bei Laufen. Mohr brought with him a poem he had written two years earlier. Gruber composed the melody for Mohrs Stille Nacht in just a few hours, the song was sung at Midnight Mass in a simple arrangement for guitar and choir. Within a few years, arrangements of the carol appeared in churches in the Salzburg Archdiocese, Mohr, a generous man who donated most of his salary to charity, was moved from place to place, and remained in Oberndorf only until 1819. After Oberndorf he was sent to Kuchl, followed by stays in Golling an der Salzach, Bad Vigaun, Adnet, in 1827 he was made pastor of Hintersee, and in 1837 of the Alpine village of Wagrain. Here he created a fund to allow children from families to attend school. Mohr died of disease on December 4,1848, at the age of 55. Mohrs final resting place is in the tiny Alpine ski resort of Wagrain, the Joseph Mohr School stands as a fitting memorial, and close to the grave of the man who wrote the words heard around the world. The village school is named after him and his grave has been kept in a place of honour in the churchyard cemetery
4.
Franz Xaver Gruber
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Franz Xaver Gruber, was an Austrian primary school teacher, church organist and composer in the village of Arnsdorf, who is best known for composing the music to Stille Nacht. Gruber was born on November 25,1787, in the village of Hochburg, Upper Austria and his given name was recorded in the baptismal record as Conrad Xavier, but this was later changed to Franz Xaver. The Hochburger schoolteacher Andreas Peterlechner gave him music lessons, Gruber worked as a weaver until the age of 18, then trained to become a schoolteacher. He completed his education studying with the church organist of Burghausen. In 1807 Gruber became schoolteacher in Arnsdorf and he also became the church caretaker and organist. In 1808 he married a widow, Maria Elisabeth Fischinger Engelsberger and they had two children, both of whom died young. After the death of his first wife in 1825, Gruber married a former student and they had ten children, four of whom survived to adulthood. In 1829 Gruber moved to Berndorf, and in 1835 to Hallein, Salzburg, Maria Gruber died in childbirth in 1841 in Hallein. The following year he married Katherine Wimmer, in 1816 he took on the additional responsibilities of organist and choirmaster at St Nicholas Church in the neighboring village of Oberndorf bei Salzburg. Together with Joseph Mohr, a Catholic priest who wrote the original German lyrics, on Christmas Eve of 1818, Mohr, an assistant pastor at St Nicholas, showed Gruber a six-stanza poem he had written in 1816. He asked Gruber to set the poem to music, the church organ had broken down so Gruber produced a melody with guitar arrangement for the poem. The two men sang Stille Nacht for the first time at Christmas Mass in St Nicholas Church while Mohr played guitar and the choir repeated the last two lines of each verse
5.
Oberndorf bei Salzburg
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Oberndorf bei Salzburg is a town in the Austrian state of Salzburg, about 17 km north of the City of Salzburg. It is situated on the river Salzach in the Flachgau district and its twin sister-town across the Salzach Bridge is Laufen in Bavaria. As in the 1890s several floods of the Salzach River destroyed large parts of Oberndorf, the church was finally demolished, a replica can be found in Frankenmuth, Michigan. Oberndorf can be reached from Salzburg by S-Bahn rapid transit railway and the B156 Lamprechtshausener Straße federal highway running from Salzburg toward Braunau am Inn
6.
Intangible cultural heritage
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Intangible cultural heritage is promoted by UNESCO as a counterpart to the World Heritage focusing mainly on intangible aspects of culture. Some of that takes the form of cultural property, formed by tangible artefacts such as buildings or works of art. Many parts of culture, however are intangible, including song, music, dance, drama, skills, cuisine, crafts and festivals. They are forms of culture that can be recorded but cannot be touched or stored in physical form, like in a museum and these cultural vehicles are called Human Treasures by the UN. The Mediterranean diet, the traditional Mexican cuisine and the Japanese dietary culture of washoku are just some examples of this booming phenomenon, digital heritage is a representation of heritage in the digital realm. Digital intangible heritage is a sub-category of Intangible Cultural Heritage, each member of the community possesses a piece of the shared knowledge. Crucial knowledge is passed on during community activities, frequently without any attention to the process. Prior to the UNESCO Convention, efforts had already made by a number of states to safeguard their intangible heritage. Other countries, including South Korea, the Philippines, the United States, Thailand, France, Romania, the Czech Republic, in 2003 UNESCO adopted the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. This went into effect on 20 April 2006, UNESCO has also created other intangible culture programs, such as a list called Proclamation of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. This list began in 2001 with 19 items and a further 28 were listed in 2003 and it was superseded in 2008 by the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists. The issue still remains open in legal scholarship, document from Newfoundland, Canada Exploring a Model of Living Cultural Heritage New model of Intangible heritage
7.
UNESCO
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The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations based in Paris. It is the heir of the League of Nations International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, UNESCO has 195 member states and nine associate members. Most of its offices are cluster offices covering three or more countries, national and regional offices also exist. UNESCO pursues its objectives through five major programs, education, natural sciences, social/human sciences, culture and it is also a member of the United Nations Development Group. UNESCO and its mandate for international cooperation can be traced back to a League of Nations resolution on 21 September 1921, on 18 December 1925, the International Bureau of Education began work as a non-governmental organization in the service of international educational development. However, the work of predecessor organizations was largely interrupted by the onset of World War II. On 30 October 1943, the necessity for an organization was expressed in the Moscow Declaration, agreed upon by China, the United Kingdom, the United States. This was followed by the Dumbarton Oaks Conference proposals of 9 October 1944, a prominent figure in the initiative for UNESCO was Rab Butler, the Minister of Education for the United Kingdom. At the ECO/CONF, the Constitution of UNESCO was introduced and signed by 37 countries, the Preparatory Commission operated between 16 November 1945, and 4 November 1946—the date when UNESCOs Constitution came into force with the deposit of the twentieth ratification by a member state. The first General Conference took place between 19 November to 10 December 1946, and elected Dr. Julian Huxley to Director-General and this change in governance distinguished UNESCO from its predecessor, the CICI, in how member states would work together in the organizations fields of competence. In 1956, the Republic of South Africa withdrew from UNESCO claiming that some of the organizations publications amounted to interference in the racial problems. South Africa rejoined the organization in 1994 under the leadership of Nelson Mandela, UNESCOs early work in the field of education included the pilot project on fundamental education in the Marbial Valley, Haiti, started in 1947. This project was followed by missions to other countries, including, for example. In 1948, UNESCO recommended that Member States should make free primary education compulsory, in 1990, the World Conference on Education for All, in Jomtien, Thailand, launched a global movement to provide basic education for all children, youths and adults. Ten years later, the 2000 World Education Forum held in Dakar, Senegal, UNESCOs early activities in culture included, for example, the Nubia Campaign, launched in 1960. The purpose of the campaign was to move the Great Temple of Abu Simbel to keep it from being swamped by the Nile after construction of the Aswan Dam, during the 20-year campaign,22 monuments and architectural complexes were relocated. This was the first and largest in a series of campaigns including Mohenjo-daro, Fes, Kathmandu, Borobudur, the organizations work on heritage led to the adoption, in 1972, of the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. The World Heritage Committee was established in 1976 and the first sites inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1978, since then important legal instruments on cultural heritage and diversity have been adopted by UNESCO member states in 2003 and 2005
8.
Bing Crosby
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Harry Lillis Bing Crosby, Jr. was an American singer and actor. The first multimedia star, from 1931 to 1954 Crosby was a leader in sales, radio ratings. His early career coincided with technical recording innovations such as the microphone and this allowed him to develop a laid-back, intimate singing style that influenced many of the popular male singers who followed him, including Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Dick Haymes, and Dean Martin. Also in 1948, the Music Digest estimated that Crosby recordings filled more than half of the 80,000 weekly hours allocated to recorded radio music, in 1963, Crosby received the first Grammy Global Achievement Award. He is one of only 33 people to have three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in the categories of motion pictures, radio, Crosby influenced the development of the postwar recording industry. He became the first performer to pre-record his radio shows and master his commercial recordings onto magnetic tape. In addition to his work with early tape recording, he helped to finance the development of videotape, bought television stations, bred racehorses, Crosby died at the age of 74 on October 14,1977, from a sudden heart attack in Alcobendas, Spain. Crosby was born on May 2,1903 in Tacoma, Washington, in 1906, Crosbys family moved to Spokane, and in 1913, Crosbys father built a house at 508 E. Sharp Avenue. The house now sits on the campus of Crosbys alma mater Gonzaga University and he was the fourth of seven children, brothers Larry, Everett, Ted, and Bob, and two sisters, Catherine and Mary Rose. His parents were Harry Lowe Crosby, Sr. a bookkeeper, Crosbys mother was a second generation Irish-American. In 1910, seven-year-old Harry Crosby Jr. was forever renamed, the Sunday edition of the Spokesman-Review published a feature called The Bingville Bugle. Written by humorist Newton Newkirk, The Bingville Bugle was a parody of a hillbilly newsletter filled with gossipy tidbits, minstrel quips, creative spelling, and mock ads. A neighbor, 15-year-old Valentine Hobart, shared Crosbys enthusiasm for The Bugle, and noting Crosbys laugh, took a liking to him, eventually, the last vowel was dropped and the nickname stuck. Crosby later described Jolsons delivery as electric, Crosby graduated from Gonzaga High School in 1920 and enrolled at Gonzaga University. He attended Gonzaga for three years, but did not earn a bachelors degree, as a freshman, he played on the universitys baseball team. The university granted him a doctorate in 1937. In 1923, Crosby was invited to join a new band composed of school students a few years younger than himself. Al Rinker, Miles Rinker, James Heaton, Claire Pritchard and Robert Pritchard, along with drummer Crosby, formed the Musicaladers, the group performed on Spokane radio station KHQ, but disbanded after two years
9.
Christmas Eve
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Christmas Eve is the day before Christmas Day, the festival commemorating the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Christmas Day is observed around the world, and Christmas Eve is widely observed as a full or partial holiday in anticipation of Christmas Day, together, both days are considered one of the most culturally significant celebrations in Christendom and Western society. Many churches still ring their bells and hold prayers in the evening, for example. Since tradition holds that Jesus was born at night, Midnight Mass is celebrated on Christmas Eve, traditionally at midnight, roman Catholics and high church Anglicans traditionally celebrate Midnight Mass, which begins either at or sometime before midnight on Christmas Eve. This ceremony, which is held in churches throughout the world, celebrates the birth of Christ, Midnight Mass is popular in Poland. In recent years churches have scheduled their Midnight Mass as early as 7 pm. In Spanish-speaking areas, the Midnight Mass is sometimes referred to as Misa de Gallo, in the Philippines, the custom has expanded into the nine-day Simbang Gabi, when Filipinos attend dawn Masses from 16 December, continuing daily until Christmas Eve. In 2009 Vatican officials scheduled the Midnight Mass to start at 10 pm so that the 82-year-old Pope Benedict XVI would not have too late a night. Whilst it does not include any kind of Mass, the Church of Scotland has a service beginning just before midnight, the Church of Scotland no longer holds Hogmanay services on New Years Eve, however. The Christmas Eve Services are still very popular, on Christmas Eve, the Christ Candle in the center of the Advent wreath is traditionally lit in many church services. In candlelight services, while singing Silent Night, each member of the congregation receives a candle, lutherans traditionally practice Christmas Eve Eucharistic traditions typical of Germany and Scandinavia. Krippenspiele, special music for organ, vocal and brass choirs. A nativity scene may be erected indoors or outdoors, and is composed of figurines depicting the infant Jesus resting in a manger, Mary, other figures in the scene may include angels, shepherds, and various animals. The figures may be made of any material, and arranged in a stable or grotto, the Magi may also appear, and are sometimes not placed in the scene until the week following Christmas to account for their travel time to Bethlehem. While most home nativity scenes are packed away at Christmas or shortly thereafter, Christmas Vespers are popular in the early evening, and midnight services are also widespread in regions which are predominantly Lutheran. The old Lutheran tradition of a Christmas Vigil in the morning hours of Christmas Day can still be found in some regions. Methodists celebrate the evening in different ways, some, in the early evening, come to their church to celebrate Holy Communion with their families. The mood is very solemn, and the visible light is the Advent Wreath
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![\relative c'' {
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a4 a8 c8. b16 a8 | g8. a16 g8 e4. | d'4 d8 f8.-> d16 b8 | c4. (e4) r8 | c8. [g16] e8 g8. f16 d8 | c4.~ c4 r8 \bar "|."
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a4 a8 c8. [b16] a8 | g8. [a16] g8 e4. | d'4 d8 f8.-> [d16] b8 | c4. (e4) r8 | c8. [(g16)] e8 g8. [f16] d8 | c4.~ c4 r8 \bar "|."
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Media related to Stille Nacht at Wikimedia Commons
