Bei stiller Nacht / In quiet night (Chorale setting)
- Disposition: alternatim SATB and SA a capella
- Composer: melody: anonymous (1649), arrangement: Christoph Dalitz
- First publication: 2019
- Text: Friedrich von Spee (1591-1635)
- License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike
A song describing Christ's prayer in the garden Gethsemane before his suffering. My setting uses the original melody, albeit with differently set bar lines. Of the original 15 stanzas, I have selected six, such that the duo in the middle stanzas represents Christ, and the four part choir represents a commenter. For the original melody and text, see "Edition A" in Frauke Schmitz-Gropengiesser: "In stiller Nacht, zur ersten Wacht" (2013) in: "Populäre und traditionelle Lieder. Historisch-kritisches Liederlexikon".
As far as I know, no historic translation of Spee's text is extant. I have therefore made my own tranlation with the kind help of Terry MacArthur. This translation is used in the English version below.
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- German version (2 A4 pages, 34kB)
- Englisch version (2 A4 pages, 34kB)