“Silent Night”
The words of “Silent Night” were written by Austrian priest Joseph Mohr in 1816. Music was added in 1818 by his friend Franz Xaver Gruber for the Christmas service at St. Nicholas Church in Oberndorf, Austria. At Midnight Mass, Mohr and Gruber sang the six verses with the church choir repeating the last two lines of each verse.
Mohr asked Gruber to compose the melody with guitar arrangement. The original guitar arrangement was placed to paper around 1820-that earliest manuscript still exists and is displayed in Carolino Augusteum Museum in Salzburg.
Years later, Gruber added an organ arrangement.
Two singing families discovered the song and began performing it as part of their concerts. In 1832, the Strasser family performed it in Leipzig. In 1839, the Rainer family first performed '𝘚𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘦 𝘕𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘵' in the US at Trinity Church in New York City. It was during this time that the tune changed to the modern version we know and sing today.
The carol was even sung in December 1914 during the Christmas Truce of World War I as it was a song that soldiers on both sides knew.
By the time the carol was famous, priest Joseph Mohr had died. Franz Xaver Gruber wrote to music authorities in Berlin explaining he had composed the tune, but was not believed. The authorities thought Haydn, Mozart or Beethoven had written it! It's now one of the most recorded Christmas songs in the world.
