Observations placeholder
Adolphe Adam - O Holy Night
Identifier
012029
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Adolphe Charles Adam (24 July 1803 – 3 May 1856) was a French composer and music critic. A prolific composer of operas and ballets, he is best known today for his ballets Giselle (1844) and Le corsaire (1856, his last work), his operas Le postillon de Lonjumeau (1836), Le toréador (1849) and Si j'étais roi (1852) and his Christmas carol Minuit, chrétiens! (1844), later set to different English lyrics and widely sung as O Holy Night (1847). .
Adams was not a Christian. There have been claims that Adolphe Adam was Jewish but these seem without foundation. It is a confirmed fact that he received a Roman Catholic burial. His obituary, May 4, 1856, in La France Musicale reads:
Les obsèques de M. Adolphe Adam auront lieu lundi 5 mai, à 11 heures, en l'église de Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, sa paroisse.
("The funeral of Mr. Adolphe Adam will take place Monday, May 5, in the church of Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, his parish.")
Adolphe Adam's father was a composer, as well a professor at the Paris Conservatoire. As a child, Adolphe Adam preferred to improvise music on his own rather than study music. When Adam was 17, he entered the Paris Conservatoire , where he studied organ and harmonium under the celebrated opera composer François-Adrien Boieldieu.
By age 20, he was writing songs for Paris vaudeville houses and playing in the orchestra at the Gymnasie Dramatique, where he later became chorus master. Like many other French composers, he made a living largely by playing the organ. In 1825, he helped Boieldieu prepare parts for his opera La dame blanche and made a piano reduction of the score. Adam was able to travel through Europe with the money he made, and he met Eugène Scribe, with whom he later collaborated, in Geneva. By 1830, he had completed twenty-eight works for the theatre.
Adam is probably best remembered for the ballet Giselle (1841). with a libretto by Théophile Gautier, inspired by a poem excerpt from "De l'Allemagne" Heinrich Heine.
His Christmas carol "Cantique de Noël", translated to English as "O Holy Night", is an international favorite, and is said to have been the first music broadcast on radio.
Adam is buried in Montmartre Cemetery in Paris.
A description of the experience
Adolphe Adam - O Holy Night
this version is sung by Celine Dion, her voice gives the song a sort of power that seems just right.
For those who prefer a more traditional interpretation listen to The choir of Kings College, Cambridge singing John Rutter's arrangement of