Silent Night

Steyn On-line ^ | December 24, 2020 | Mark Steyn

[Twotone]

By popular demand we are rebroadcasting a Steyn program first aired two years ago:

In this special audio edition of Steyn's Song of the Week Mark celebrates the bicentennial of a beloved Christmas song first performed exactly two centuries ago - Christmas Eve 1818 - in a small church in Oberndorf, Austria - "Stille Nacht", or "Silent Night".

For these birthday observances, Steyn welcomes the man who knows more about "Silent Night" and the men who created it than anybody on the planet - the Austrian actor and producer Hanno Schilf, who tells the story of the song, and the strange circumstances that swept it from a village near Salzburg to royal audiences in Austria, Russia and England and then to global fame. We'll hear the tale of a famous "Silent Night" in the trenches of the Great War, and what it's like to grow up in a land where every Christmas Eve is a silent night. Along the way Mark plays the third biggest-selling single of all time, and various other versions of "Silent Night" from pop stars via church choirs and guitarists and Lebanese Christians to the way the song sounded on that first performance two hundred Christmas Eves ago. There's also music from Mozart, Schubert and Rodgers & Hammerstein.

[Twotone]

Hour-long audio at the link - Steyn with special guests Elisabeth von Trapp and Hanno Schilf.

[Texas Eagle]

Best Steyn Online ever. Thanks for posting.

[texas booster]

Thanks!

[Nailbiter]

flr