Silent Night

Silent night, Holy night,
All is calm, all is bright.
Round yon virgin mother and child.
Holy infant, so tender and mild,
Sleep in heavenly peace.
Sleep in heavenly peace.

Silent night, Holy night,
Shepherds quake at the sight.
Glories stream from heaven afar,
Heavenly hosts sing Alleluia,
Christ the Saviour is born!
Christ the Saviour is born!

Silent night, Holy night,
Son of God, love’s pure light;
Radiant beams from thy holy face
With the dawn of redeeming grace,
Jesus, Lord, at thy birth.
Jesus, Lord, at thy birth.

Silent Night is an Austrian carol, Stille Nacht, with the words originally written as a poem by Joseph Mohr (1792-1848), a young priest from Salzburg. Mohr worked in a very poor community and could relate to his parishioners because he too had been brought up in poverty: his father had deserted his mother when he learned she was pregnant and Mohr had been raised with the stigma of living in a one parent family. The church choirmaster recognised Joseph’s musical potential and provided the encouragement and support for him to train as a priest. A few years after his ordination, on Christmas Eve in 1816 he was summoned to bless a newly born child and its parents in a remote mountain hut; afterwards he reflected on how peaceful the scene had been, and imagined how it might have resembled the nativity scene. Once he had completed Midnight Mass he wrote the poem that was to become Silent Night in the early morning of Christmas Day 1816.

On Christmas Eve in 1818, Mohr realised he needed a new song for that evening’s service so visited a schoolteacher friend who was also a church organist and choirmaster; Franz Xaver Gruber (1787-1863) was from Bavaria and had been pressed by his family to get a thorough education and professional post, so he shared Mohr’s concerns for the poorest in their community. Mohr hoped that his poem might be reworked into a hymn and Gruber was so touched by it that he thought a slow and gentle melody would be appropriate, working out an arrangement with Mohr on his guitar. On Christmas Eve 1818, during the midnight Mass at St Nicholas Church in Oberndorf, Silent Night was sung for the first time in the church by Mohr and Gruber, with the guitar accompaniment,.

Through various connections of Franz Gruber the carol was picked up by itinerant folk singers who sang the piece across Austria and by the 1840s it had become popular throughout Prussia and other parts of Germany too. It has subsequently been translated into English, French, Italian, Spanish, and over 100 other languages.

One of the folk groups visited New York City in 1839 and the carol was translated into English by John Freeman Young who went on the be the Bishop of Florida; subsequently the carol came to Britain. Later, the original manuscripts went missing and for several years there was some debate as to whether the music might have been written by Haydn, or Mozart, or Beethoven; however, in 1995, an original manuscript in Mohr’s own handwriting dating from about 1820 was found, and the provenance of the carol was restored. Among the many accolades the carol has received, Silent Night has been declared intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO in 2011; in Austria, traditionally, the carol is not sung during Advent before 24 December.

For the rest of his life, Mohr remained a parish priest in a succession of deprived communities and in all of them he undertook a variety of charitable works, usually in the context of opening schools, creating scholarships for poor children, and providing care for the destitute elderly. He died in Wagrain which is now an Alpine ski resort where there’s a school named in his honour, and a well tended grave. Gruber continued as a schoolteacher and church organist but also composed additional arrangements of the carol for organ, for organ with orchestra, and also scores for other carols and masses – some of which are still performed in Austrian churches.

Merry Christmas

Header and Footer postage stamp images from AustrianPhilately.com

Header image: 200th Anniversary of Silent Night in Oberdorf Church, Christmas Stamp, 2018

Centre image : Joseph Mohr & Franz Gruber Christmas Stamp, 1987

Footer image: Joseph Mohr & Franz Gruber 130th Anniversary Christmas Stamp, 1948