The Story of Silent Night Read Online Free PDF Page B

nearby.
    The family was delighted to accept such an honour. The thrifty glove manufacturers worked hard on a consignment for Christmas sale and the four singers arranged and advertised a concert of their own the same month in the ballroom of the Hotel Pologne. The notice appeared in the Leipziger Tagesblatt, where it triggered an anonymous letter, another strand in the fine skein that was being woven. Had one single thread been severed . . . ?
“Greatly Honoured Sirs:
    “Having seen the announcement in your valued newspaper pertaining to the concert of the Gesckwister Strasser from the Tyrol, might it be in order respectfully to request them to include the little Weihnachtslied “Stille Nacht” in their programme. I had the pleasure of listening to them sing it last year and would enjoy hearing it again.
    “Yours faithfully,
“AN ADMIRER.”
    The four were delighted to comply. It was added publicity and guaranteed them at least one paid admission. But it was not a question of one, but of how many could be packed into the hall. It was an ideal seasonal entertainment and an opportunity to hear the quartet known to have been invited to sing in the King’s chapel.
    And now the time, the place and the audience were right, with one more important character waiting in the wings for his cue to enter the story and play his part.
    Once more, the four Strassers, the girls fresh-faced, their dark hair looped in braids about their heads, clad in bright coloured dirndls with contrasting aprons, the boys in green trousers, foresters’ jackets and frilled shirts, blended their voices in their rendition of their Tyrolean Christmas song. Only this time it was different.
    For it was Christmas time that night, without and within and this was, amongst other things, not a church but a concert hall. The Christmas spirit was abroad. In the homes there was the smell of roasting goose, sugared fruits, Lebkuchen and Weihnachtsstollen, the traditional holiday cakes, pine boughs and hollyberries. It was the time of mysterious comings and goings behind closed doors, packages and the whisperings of excited children. For the Germans it was the most endearing and sentimental season of the year.
    As for that important player who had been awaiting his summons? He was already there in the fourth row, sitting spellbound. His name was Anton Friese and he was a Dresden music publisher in Leipzig briefly on business. To while away the last evening before returning to his home and holiday celebration with his family he had on impulse, as he passed the Hotel, purchased a ticket and taken his seat.
    Perhaps it was the very urban smartness and sophistication of the members of the audience in the face of the unexpected that enabled the simple song to pierce directly to their hearts, evoke long forgotten memories of childhood, of innocent days spent in the little villages and farms of their youth. It had a nostalgia that seemed to bring back all the love and tenderness of Christmases past to combine with that of their own children of the present.
    When the last note had died away the audience sat silent, still enchained by the mixture of emotions evoked. Then the pent up feeling overflowed into a storm of applause and the quartet was compelled to repeat the number. And this time Herr Friese was ready. For at the first hearing he had been too overwhelmed by the thoughts and recollections the song had aroused in him to do more than listen and know that his eyes were moist.
    Extracting a pencil from his pocket, he turned over his programme which had merely listed, “TYROLEAN CHRISTMAS FOLKSONG. Authors Unknown”, and on the back drew the five lines in treble clef. As he listened for the second time he jotted down the words and in a kind of of musical shorthand of his own, captured the notes of the melody as well.
    That night at his hotel, he transcribed the entire song perfectly—or, that is to say, almost perfectly except for one or two slight lapses of memory