Silent Night

The words for the Christmas carol we know as  Silent Night  were first set down on paper in 1816 in the tiny Alpine village of Mariapfarr, Austria.

The young priest was worried. Within 24 hours he was supposed
to lead a Christmas Eve service, but he had no music. The Salzach
River that flowed near the village church of Oberndorf, Austria,
caused chronic moisture which had rusted the pipe organ. Without
the organ there would be no music. And what was Christmas Eve
without music?

Father Josef Mohr had but recently come to this tiny village.
The night of December 23 he had attended the town Christmas play.
But instead of going home afterwards, he had climbed the small
mountain overlooking the town and soaked in the beauty and quiet
of the darkness. It was nearly midnight before he reached his
room. And so in the wee hours of December 24, 1818, he sat down
to pen a new song, one which could be played on a guitar--at least
that wasn't broken.

"Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!" he wrote. "Silent
night, holy night." The nighttime peacefulness of Oberndorf
was fresh in his mind; beyond it he could imagine Bethlehem, bathed
in moonglow:

All is calm, all is bright.
Round yon Virgin Mother and child!
Holy Infant so tender and mild,
Sleep in heavenly peace.

The words were flowing now. He could visualize shepherds quaking,
shaken from the quietness of their vigil by the glories streaming from
heaven. He could see the child's countenance:

Son of God, love's pure light,
Radiant beams from Thy holy face,
With the dawn of redeeming grace,
Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth.

It wasn't long 'til the simple poem was finished....

Now, perhaps he could sleep.

The next morning he brought the poem to his organist, Franz
Gruber. "I know it's the last minute," he must have
said, "but could you put a tune to this song for the service
tonight? Something simple that I could accompany on the guitar?"

Father Mohr was new to the parish, and to the church's chief musician.
But then, Gruber was being paid, and at that moment his beloved
organ wouldn't work. Gruber set about the task quickly and in
a couple of hours he was done, just in time to rehearse with the
choir before the service. Mohr sang tenor, Gruber sang bass,
and the service went off beautifully with the new song. "Stille
Nacht! Heilige Nacht!"

A master organ builder eventually came to Oberndorf to repair
the rusted organ, and there learned of the carol. He copied the
song and doubtless sang it as he worked on organs in the neighboring
villages. From him, two families of traveling folk singers, similar
to the Trapp Family Singers of "Sound of Music" fame,
learned of the song and sang it in concerts all over Europe. In
1834 the Strasser family performed it for the king of Prussia,
who ordered it sung every Christmas Eve by his cathedral choir.

The Rainer family singers brought it to America in 1839.

By mid-century it had become popular around the world,

 but no one could recall its composer.

The story of its fame was long to reach the tiny villages of
Austria. But in 1854, Franz Gruber sent a letter to the leading
musical authorities with his claim to have written the tune. In
1848 Father Mohr had died of pneumonia, but Gruber still had the
original manuscript to show,  and gradually he was recognized as the composer.

 The fame of this composition spread throughout the world, and nearly two centuries later, people are still touched by both the simplicity and the strength of its message.

~~~

 Joseph Mohr created a song so powerful, it caused a World War I battle to temporarily cease as British and German soldiers sang of heavenly peace on Christmas Eve.

 During World War II,  fighting was suspended on many fronts while people around the globe turned to their radios on Christmas Eve to hear opera star Ernestine Schumann-Heink sing Stille Nacht.

In addition to her status as an international opera star, Mme. Schumann-Heink was a mother with one son fighting for the Axis and another son fighting for the Allies. Her rendition of this inspired carol, first sung in the village of Oberndorf, Austria, had the power to bring a few moments of peace to a troubled world.

Austria's gift to the world, Silent Night has been translated into more languages than any other Christmas song.

Today, in the U.S., we hear Silent Night played in shopping malls beginning in mid-October, yet Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht! is more than just a Christmas song to the people of Austria.

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