Article: The origin of Brahms's 'In Stiller Nacht.'

Johannes Brahms's two interpretations of the enigmatic folk song In stiller Nacht are among his best known and most beloved folk-song settings, a reputation justly deserved, for in each a poem is united with music of equal simplicity and poignancy. In the choral rendition, which opens the second volume of the Deutsche Volkslieder for mixed a cappella choir (1864; WoO 34 no. 8; see ex. 1), a rhythmically straightforward homophonic texture is softly colored with neighbor-tone dissonances to reinforce the expressive undulation of the melody and delicately orchestrated by reducing the voices to three treble parts or amplifying them with divisi alto or bass. The distinctive ...

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