This Advent season or, for you non-liturgical folk, pre-Christmas season, I've been thinking a lot about the song "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence." I love this song. It's not a well-known Christmas carol, and we didn't sing it in church when I was growing up, but it's become one of my favorites. Perhaps because it isn't quite so familiar, perhaps just because it's gorgeous. It's Christmas-eve, candle-light service gorgeous.
I did an arrangement of it several years ago for two violins, but since my duet partner is several thousand miles away, I've been thinking about doing a solo arrangement of it. I have some ideas (a D drone here, some false harmonics there) but don't quite know yet how to fit them into a logical, yet non-redundant whole.
Given the context I'm in, though, I had to ask myself, "Does this song exist in French?" Generally, I prefer to play instrumental music in church that people actually know. I've been doing some research. It turns out that our English words, that you can find here http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/l/e/letallmf.htm are a translation of the original Greek words which date from the 4th century. They were theologically deep back then apparently. The melody is a traditional French melody dating from the 17th century. I figured that if the melody is French, there must be French words, right? Well, there are, and I found them. Actually, I found them to be extremely disapointing.
The original French version of this tune is a song called Jésus Christ s'habille en pauvre where Jesus, disguised as a beggar, knocks on the door of a house and asks for dinner. The husband tells him to get lost, but the wife invites him in, feeds him, and lets him stay the night. Jesus tells her that they're both going to die in 3 days, she will go to heaven, and her husband will burn in hell.
How nice.
I'm sure that, shady theology aside, we could draw very edifying lessons about hospitality and charity from this song. But, these are NOT the words that inspire me, and I guess I'll have to save my Christmas eve solo for when I can play it in an English-speaking context.
In the meantime, I'm making an effort not to be so busy with things worldly-minded that I neglect to keep silence before the King of kings whose coming we remember at this season.
5 comments:
La femme va au ciel et le mari va en enfer: très aimable pour Tom... Heureusement, je suis célibataire, grâce au ciel!
Alain
Mais c'est précisement pour cela que je ne tiens pas à évoquer cette chanson lors d'un culte.
J'espère que ta saison de l'Avent est remplie de Sa présence!
3. Je suis à mon bien-aimé, et mon bien-aimé est à moi! (Ct.6/3)
Alain
Let All Mortal Flesh is probably my favorite hymn ever and I am very sad they don't have it in French. Recently I was wondering if they did to share it with my friend here, but I guess he'll just have to read it in English. On the positive side, I am learning that "O Holy Night," which is my Christmas song I do almost every year, is actually even cooler in French. (I now almost actually understand what the French means.)
Ooooohhhh... O Holy Night exists in French? I didn't know that, although Thomas just informed me that it also exists in Corsican. However, since he doesn't actually remember the words in either language, could I get them? (In French, I mean!)
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