O Holy Night by Bill Gemaehlich
A
s we anticipate celebrating the birth of Christ through the season of Advent, I wanted to share the history behind the beautiful Christmas hymn “O Holy Night.” “O Holy Night” has an unusual origin beginning in the town of Roquemaure in Southern France. To celebrate the completion of renovations to the church organ, a local parish priest hired poet and wine merchant, Placide Cappeau, to write a poem for Christmas mass. Known more for his poetry than his church attendance, Cappaeau penned the poem, using the Gospel of Luke as his guide, while riding on a stagecoach to Paris.
Cappeau then sought out his Jewish friend Adolphe Adam, a well-known composer of French Operas and ballets, to transform the poem into a song. Adam crafted a beautiful musical score to accompany the poem. Initially, the hymn was wholeheartedly accepted by the church in France but soon after it was denounced by French church leadership. The church deemed it unfit because the writer walked away from the Catholic church and joined the socialist movement, and the composer did not believe in Jesus Christ. A decade later the song made its way to the influential American music critic, John Sul-
