New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1914-12-20
4 EPENC6 NOEL

wrote a devotional book on the subject
of the saint rebuked the artists for
/ representing him unbecomingly in re-
spect of age and features. Very naive
~, but with touching sincerity, he ar
gued that God would not have provided
a husband for His mother who had any
personal defect, and although he might
have been forty and his spouse four
teen, he ought not TO be represented
as decrepit and leaning on staff, for
he was vigorous enough TO work for his
family thirty years at home and abroad.
There is a picture of the domestic sim
plicity of the pious Germans in the
Middle Ages in the little drama which
used to be played in the churches Of
Germany Gas WELL no doubt, in those
of other countries), of which a relic
has come down TO US by suggestion IN
one of the Christmas songs referred TO
as being in the repertory of the Musical
Art Society. This song is Calvisius's
setting in the highest art of his time
of a grading song which used 10 be
sung in the ceremony called "Kindlein-
wiegen," or, more Familiarity, "Kindel-
wiegen." There is an echo of this cere-
mony in the contralto song, "Slumber,
Beloved" IN Bach's christmas Ora
torio," and a survival, probably, in the
creches still exhibited in our Roman
Catholic churches in Christmas week.
Five hundred years ago the simple ia
bleau of to-day did not suffice the aims
Of the Church Then dramatic repre-
sensations were frankly used to i'm
press the people with the facts of Bib
lical history. The scene of the Nativ
ity mad to be acted to make it vitality
instructive. Joseph, the Virgin Moth
er. the shepherds and the Wise Men all
had living representatives, and all
gathered around the Divine Child lying
in the manger, or cradle, and in dia
logue and song rehearsed the story Of
the Nativity. Hymns belonging to the
liturgy of the Church were, no doubt
used at first, but in time vernacular
songs, folksongs, were intermingled
with them, as was evidenced by the
Calvisius song sung by the Musical Art
Society last Tuesday evening. Alternat-
ing with the German song in which Jo-
seph was asked by his spouse 10 rock
the cradle of her child there was a
fragment of Latin church hymn,
"Resonet in laudibus,' and probably
cradle song which lulled many Ger
man baby to sleep in the sixteenth
century. and earlier. "Sause, liebes
Kindelein" sang the chorus TO a CHEEKY
with the melody of the hymn; "Su-
saninne" sang Martin Luther in the
Christmas song, "Vom Himmel hoch da
komm ich her." which he wrote for his
children, and "Suse, liebe Suse" sings
Cretel in the first scene of Humper-
dinck's fairy opera.
It's Hold on the People.
How much of the dramatic mummery
of the traditional incidents OF the Ma
tivity had survived in the Protestant
churches of Leipsic in Bach's time and
led him to put his slumber song into
the christmas 0ratorio" cannot be
exactly determined. The little play had
taken a strong hold on the affections
of the people, however, and if it was
no longer acted, many of the hymns
which it called forth remained in the
popular mouth and some Of them got
into the hymn books. The "Kindel-
wiegen" was only one incident in the
dramatic representations of Christmas
Eve. Standing on platform above