Whether you're feeling savage, (hello, most likely to questions) or you want to see your best mates drink too much prosecco, ( Ring of Fire, we see you) here are our 15 favourite house party game suggestions.Ī real crowd pleaser, the Head's Up app makes party games a doddle. Now that the festive period is rolling around, you may be after some ideas to pick up the pace a little at your Christmas party, that is once you've eaten all the roast potatoes. Step forward: the best house party games for adults. While there is debate among historians about the nature and scope of the truce, Silent night is firmly established in popular imagination as the soundtrack for this remarkable event, as shown by its use in a supermarket television advert in 2014.Often the best drinking games are all you need to have a brilliant time, but sometimes you're after something just a ~little~ bit more civilised. Kirchhoff’s singing of the carol in both German and English is credited with encouraging the exchange of songs, greetings and gifts between the opposing soldiers. In his book on the truce, historian Stanley Weintraub identifies the singer as Walter Kirchhoff, a German Officer and sometime member of the Berlin Opera. Christmas truceĪt least as famous as the story of the carol’s origin is that of its role in the Christmas truce of 1914. The gentle downward contours of all but one of the melodic phrases also contribute to the subdued character of the music the contrasting penultimate phrase responds to the sense of hope and joy in Mohr’s text, while the final descent underlines the atmosphere of calm and security of Gruber’s musical interpretation. Two of the best-known examples are the Pastoral Symphony from Handel’s Messiah, which sets the scene for the shepherds, and the Sinfonia at the beginning of Part II of JS Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. These are commonly-used features, often likened to the sound of a shepherd’s pipe, and can be found in many compositions associated with Christmas. This allows for the frequent use of a three-note dotted rhythm pattern (first heard on the first word: “si-i-lent”), which – together with simple and slow-moving harmonies – helps to create a pastoral atmosphere. The melody is set in compound time, that is, with each beat subdivided into three parts. Gruber’s music enhances the folk-like qualities of the carol.
Modern hymn books continue to use a variety of different translations, but from the many different versions of the opening line, “Silent night! Holy night!” has become the most widely adopted.
Most translate only three of Mohr’s six stanzas – and this shortened form has also become the standard in German-speaking countries. The third stanza meditates on the divinity of the Christ Child and the mystery of the incarnation, while the fifth explores the work of God the Son in bring salvation from sin.Įnglish translations first appeared in the 1850s, and new versions continued to be published well into the 20th century. The same line, “Stille Nacht! heilige Nacht!” (Silent night, holy night) opens each of the six verses, an effective rhetorical device that creates and maintains a tone of quiet mystery throughout the text.Īcross the six verses, Mohr juxtaposes traditional imagery of the peaceful newborn baby resting on his mother’s breast with simple statements that reflect the profundity of his birth in Christian doctrine. The content and careful craftsmanship of Mohr’s lyrics are important factors too. Whether there is something about the carol’s makeshift origins that resonates with the Nativity story itself, or simply the greater sense of intimacy created by the use of the guitar, a rather more domestic instrument than the church organ, the stories of the carol’s origin invest it with a folksy quality that contributes to its popularity. Rather, it is the sense of homely resourcefulness that the story conveys that is important to the way in which Silent Night has subsequently been viewed and appreciated. But the exact historical record of the carol’s genesis are not the most important matter here, however. While Gruber may have been responding to an unexpected situation at short notice, the existence of Mohr’s text indicates that some accounts of the carol as a last ditch collaborative solution have been somewhat embellished.
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