The Hymns and Carols of Christmas

Silent Night, Holy Night - Notes

Words: Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!
Rev. Joseph Mohr (1792-1848), 1816.

Music: "Stille Nacht," Franz Xaver Gruber (1787-1863), 18181
MIDI / Noteworthy Composer / PDF / XML
Source: Silent Night -- The Original Sheet Music
Cyber sheet music by Frank Petersohn
Sequenced by Douglas D. Anderson

Version VII from Franz Gruber2
Melody Only: MIDI / Noteworthy Composer / PDF / XML
Soprano and Alto: MIDI / Noteworthy Composer / PDF / XML
Note that the chorus repeats the last two lines of each verse.
Sequenced by Douglas D. Anderson

Sheet Music from O. Hardwig, ed., The Wartburg Hymnal (Chicago: Wartburg Publishing House, 1918), #113
MIDI / Noteworthy Composer / PDF / XML
This is an example of a "modern" tune and arrangement.
Harmonization: Unknown
Sequenced by Douglas D. Anderson

Picture: Silent Night' Chapel, Oberndorf, Austria (courtesy of Bronner's Christmas Wonderland. © 1977, Wayne Bronner).

It is likely the most popular Christmas carol in the world, but for many years, the history of the carol was a source of great confusion.

The Creators: Mohr & Gruber

The traditional story is that Rev. Josef Mohr (1792-1848) and Franz Xaver Gruber (1787-1863) wrote it in Oberndorf, Austria, on Christmas Eve when they discovered the church organ was damaged (different versions say it rusted out, or mice chewed through vital parts3). Charming as those stories are, they are fiction. In fact, in a letter written by Franz Gruber, son of the composer, he noted that “During the time when my father was the organist of the church of St Nikola, there was a very poor almost unusable organ there. This may well explain why the Reverend Mohr preferred to accompany the carol on a well-tuned guitar than on an off-pitch organ.”

An old manuscript has reportedly been discovered that shows Rev. Mohr wrote the lyrics in 1816, and that Franz Gruber wrote the score two years later at Rev. Mohr's request (the manuscript is now located at the Salzburg Museum, Carolino Augusteum; unfortunately, the English version has disappeared).  Mohr never said what his inspiration was. Gruber did not disclose why Mohr made the request to add music to the poem (and you can safely disregard as purest fiction any stories about Mohr walking through the forest on a snowy night, or that invent a dialogue between the two men).  Whatever the reason, this is the most popular of all Christmas carols, and a favorite worldwide for almost 200 years.

Rev. Josef Mohr

Mohr was born into poverty in Salzburg on December 11, 1792, the illegitimate son of Anna Schoiberin, a knitter, and Joseph (Franz) Mohr of Mariapfarr, a deserter from the Salzburg army. His father abandoned Anna and the child, and later young Josef was taken under the tutelage of Vicar Johann Nepomuk Hiernle, a Benedictine monk and the Salzburg cathedral choir director, who recognized his musical talents. A chorister in the Salzburg Cathedral, Josef later attended Kremsmunster Lyceum, where he was an avid music student. In 1811, he entered the Salzburg seminary, and was ordained a priest on August 21, 1815.

His first postings were to Ramsau and then to Mariapfarr in the Lungau region of the Salzburg province. It was there, it is believed, that he wrote the six-verse poem, "Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!" in 1816.  The source of his inspiration is unknown (again, you may safely disregard any speculation); Mariapfarr was home to his grandfather, and this area had suffered greatly during the Napoleonic wars, which had just ended.  Due to poor health, he was sent to Salzburg for hospitalization in the summer of 1817. In October, during his convalescence, he was assigned to assist the pastor at St. Nicholas Church in Oberndorf — where he met Franz Xaver Gruber. Oberndorf is located approximately 11 miles north-northwest from Salzburg.

Franz Xaver Gruber

Also born into poverty at Unterweizberg, near Hochburg, Austria, on November 25, 1787, Gruber likewise showed his musical talents early. His father Joseph, a linen weaver, discouraged his study of music so he studied the violin secretly and in 1805-06, he took music lessons from Georg Hartdobler, the organist of the city parish of Burghausen. He was the schoolteacher at Arnsdorf from 1807-1829. During that time he was also the organist at Oberndorf where he wrote this melody. Later he became the headmaster at Berndorf, and for the 28 years prior to his death, he held the position of organist and choir director of the city parish of Hallein, near Salzburg.

On 30th December 1854, Gruber wrote the following:

On December 24th in the year 1818 the curate of the newly erected parish-church St. Nicola of Oberndorf, Mr. Joseph Mohr handed over a poem to the deputy organist, Franz Gruber (at that time also teacher at Arnsdorf) with the request to compose a suitable melody for two solo voices with choir and the accompaniment of one guitar.

Gruber did so, and the carol was first performed at the midnight mass on Christmas Eve, 1818. Mohr sang the tenor part, Gruber sang the bass, and the church choir did the refrains of each verse, which consisted of the last two lines of the verse. Mohr played the guitar accompaniment. It was said to have been enthusiastically received by by the congregation.

In October 1819, Fr. Mohr was transferred from Oberndorf to Kuchl and somewhere between that time and 1821 he wrote out an arrangement of the carol (and see left). This document was discovered in 1995 and, after it was authenticated by handwriting experts and historians, has been proclaimed the earliest known manuscript of "Stille Nacht."

Carl (or Karl) Mauracher, who made his home in the Ziller Valley, repaired the damaged organ in Arnsdorf — where Gruber lived — in 1821 and installed a new organ in the church of St. Nikolaus in Oberndorf in 1825. Not later than 1821 visit — and possibly as early as 1819 — he had with him the words and melody for "Stille Nacht!" (one of the earliest known copies was dated 1822 and owned by Johann Baptist Weindl, singer and director of the parish choir of the Salzburg Cathedral). It isn't known how Mauracher came to have this copy; again, you should ignore any hypothetical fantasies). For more information about this man, see the Karl Mauracher Gallery (link opens in a new window at an exterior site).

Mauracher shared this song with two neighboring families of singers in the Ziller Valley, the Strassers and the Rainers. Both families embraced the song and sang it throughout Europe. Stille Nacht Gesellschaft also states that at Christmas, 1819, the original Rainer Family Singers sang the song in the parish church of Fügen (Zillertal) and again three years later at the Castle of Count Dönhoff . It was during this period that the original melody was slightly changed.

Stille Nacht Gesellschaft reports the song was included in a church songbook dated July 22, 1819 and prepared by Blasius Wimmer, organist and teacher in Waidring (Tirol). Unfortunately, this can't be verified as this copy is now lost.

The first verifiable publication of the song occurred in 1833 when publisher A. R. Friese of Dresden and Leipzig included it as the fourth song in a sheet music booklet entitled "Vier echte Tyroler Lieder..." ("Four genuine Tirolian songs..."). In 1838, "Stille Nacht" was also published in a collection called Leipziger Gesangbuch (the full name of the publication: Katholisches Gesäng-und Gebetbuch für den öffentlichen und häuslichen Gottesdienst zunächst zum Gebrauche der katholischen Gemeinden im Königreiche Sachsen).

The Rainers brought the song to the United States in 1839 where it was performed at numerous locations, including the Alexander Hamilton monument in New York, near Trinity Church. At that time, only a very few knew of the authorship of the carol which was already well known.

Fr. Mohr served in various parish assignments after he completed his service at Oberndorf in October, 1819. In 1838, he was appointed pastor of the parish at Wagrain where he served for ten years. When he died on December 4, 1848 from a lung ailment at Wagrain, the authorship of the carol was virtually unknown. Those who knew him described him as generous and magnanimous, possessing a cheerful and happy disposition, coupled with deep religious beliefs and childlike piety. In his later years, he acknowledged his authorship of "Silent Night" to Andreas Winkler, who wrote to the Salzburger Chronik in 1897:

Along with other students I was often the guest of the extremely sociable Rev. Joseph Mohr in Wagrain. In good humour we would drink a toast to the lyricist of 'Silent Night'. He would be grateful and say that it was one of the most treasured moments of his life, when shortly before Christmas, 1818, he met Mr. Franz Gruber and said: 'Let's work up something together for Christmas eve', which was the way it turned out; 'I did the lyrics and Franz Gruber, the melody' - the same Vicar Mohr always put it in those words.

In 1854, at the request of the Royal Prussian Court Chapel in Berlin, the monastery of St. Peter's in Salzburg launched an investigation into the origins of "Stille Nacht!".  It was at that time that Franz Gruber wrote his authentication (and see excerpt above) which provided the world with the needed proof of composition of both the lyrics and melody.  The subsequent discovery in 1995 of the Mohr manuscript (circa 1820, see above) confirmed the date of composition of both the lyrics by Mohr, and the melody by Gruber.

Gruber died June 7, 1863. He was described as a respectable, conscientious and responsible man, a good musician, an excellent organist, and a creative composer. Additional biographical information about both Mohr and Gruber can be found at the excellent Stille Nacht Gesellschaft site: Mohr's biography and Gruber's biography.

The old town of Oberndorf was relocated due to constant danger of flooding from the Salzach river. A new church was built in 1904; the original St. Nicholas church was closed in 1903 and demolished in 1906. A memorial chapel dedicated to Mohr and Gruber was erected on the original location of the church; it was blessed in 1937 and is the site of annual remembrances of the now famous pair.

"Stille Nacht" has been translated into over 300 languages and dialects. Many versions in many languages can be found at Jako Olivier's Silent Night Museum website, which I recommend. A good number of translations can also be found in Alois Schmaus and Lenz Kriss-Rettenbeck, Silent Night, Holy Night: History and Circulation Of A Carol (Innsbruck-Munich: University Press, 1968).

English Translations

The first English translation in the United States was published in an 1849 Methodist hymnal (I have been unable to obtain a copy). By 1905, however the Methodist Hymnal had abandoned this version in favor of the Young translation (see below)

Another English translation, "Stilly night, holy night" was made in 1858 for the choir of St. Mark’s Church, Brighton, by Emily Elizabeth Steele Elliott (1836-1897), author of "Thou didst leave thy throne and thy kingly crown," and over 140 other hymns. Her father was rector of St. Mark's. Her first edition of poetry was Chimes of Consecration, (1875); it contained 70 hymns and poems. An additional 71 were published in Chimes for Daily Service (1880). Part two of Daily Service was published under the title "Under the Pillow (Being Hymn-Thoughts Chiefly for the Sick and Sorrowing)" (date unknown). See: Christmas-tide Poetry by Emily Elizabeth Steele Elliott. I have been unable to locate a copy.

The definitive English translation by Rev. John Freeman Young (1820-1885) was published in 1859, a 16-page pamphlet titled Carols For Christmas Tide (New York: Daniel Dana, Jr.). The first of the seven carols in this pamphlet was "Silent Night, Holy Night."4 It isn't known when Rev. Young first heard the original hymn.

(High Resolution: Cover, Silent Night Page)

Previously, most sources believed that first publication Bishop Young's version occurred in 1863 (which was also the year of the death of Franz Gruber) in The Sunday-School Service and Tune Book: Selected and arranged by John Clark Hollister5 (New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, 1863; hymn #15, page 34). Below the title, a single line of text gave the only attribution: "From the Third (unpublished) Part of 'Hymns and Music for the Young.' By permission of the Author."6 Rev. Young was not identified as the translator; Part First of this series was published in 1860.

Young's authorship of this translation was clearly established in J. H. Hopkins's 1887 publication Great Hymns of the Church Compiled By The Late Right Reverend John Freeman Young (New York: James Pott & Company, 1887). On page 81, Hymn 50, Young's name was identified as author of the translation. This would be the last association of Young's name with this translation until Rev. Byron Edward Underwood's 1957 article.

For more information about Bishop Young, including a photograph of his sadly neglected grave in Jacksonville, Florida, see Bill Egan's A Christmas Tale of Three Cities and A Grave In Need.

Grave of Bishop Young. Photograph courtesy of Bill Egan, Christmas Historian, August 2005.

Grave stone of Mrs. Young. Photograph courtesy of Bill Egan, Christmas Historian, August 2005.

Another early and influential translation was Holy Night, Peaceful Night by Miss Jane Montgomery Campbell, circa 1863. I have been unable to locate the first publication; this translation has been adapted by numerous editors and included in numerous collections, including Hutchins' Sunday School Hymnal (1892) and his Carols Old and Carols New (1916).

Rev. Stopford A. Brooke also created a Stille Nacht translation, Still the night, Holy the night (1881). Numerous other translations, and adaptations of these three translations, are found in hymnals, frequently anonymously.

On May 17, 2007, William Egan posted his translation of the three verses not translated by Bishop Young (i.e., verses 3, 4, and 5). This translation was made at the request of Austria's Silent Night Society. The translation, and a recording (using Gruber's original tune), can be found at the Christmas International Group at Yahoo.com. His posting was message #6320 under the title “Silent Night - The Other Three Verses” (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ChristmasInternational/message/6320 ).

A literal German-to-English translation can be seen at the Stille Nacht Gesellschaft (Silent Night Association) web site: http://www.stillenacht.at/en/text_and_music.asp

The carol "Stille Nacht" was among the first heard during the historic and unprecedented Christmas Truce of 1914, which inspired a poem by Frederick Niven, A Carol from Flanders. Concerning the Truce of 1914, see: Stop The War And Love Thy Enemy (this article was also posted at Yahoo's Christmas International Group: Stille Nacht Stops The War - 1914).

The Oxford Book of Carols (1928) did not contain "Silent Night, Holy Night."  It has been said that the editors considered it "vulgar," according to The New Oxford Book of Carols (1992) where this omission was corrected. It was also excluded from Bramley & Stainer, Hymns Ancient and Modern, and most other English and American hymnals and carol collections prior to the early 1900s.

Translations on this site include:

In the public domain:

Non-English:

Humor:

Under copyright:

  • Silent Night, Holy Night (7 O'Clock News, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, copyright)

  • Silent Night, Holy Night (Free Translation by Huge Keyte and Andrew Parrott, The New Oxford Book of Carols, 1992). The editors also include two musical settings: the first is a reconstruction from two of Gruber's originals (for two voices, organ and guitar, and choir repeating the last two lines of the verse); the second setting is a "modern" arrangement by the editors.

  • Silent Night, Holy Night (Translation by David Willcocks, copyright circa 1970).

  • Silent Night, Holy Night (Translation by Elizabeth Poston, The Penguin Book of Carols, copyright 1965)

  • copyright 1986)

  • Silent Night, Holiest Night (Translation by Paul Gallico, 1967)

  • Silent Night, Holy Night (Joyous Christmas! Holy Christmas!, English Translation of Glade jul, hellige jul! from Mike and Else's Norwegian Songbook (Bloomington, MN: Skandisk, 1985).

  • Silent Night, Holy Night (Norwegian, "Stille Natt - Heilage Natt!," translation by Erik Hillestad, 1991)

  • Silent Night, Holy Night (Translation by G. B. Timms, The New English Hymnal, #35, 1986.)

See Jeanne Pasero's site, Christmas in Wales for a Welsh version of Silent Night: Tawel nos dros y byd (plus two other Welsh favorites). This is just one of many Christmas-related pages on her very large site.

Notes:

1. From the 1855 Franz Xaver Gruber manuscript for soprano, alto, choir and organ. Gruber created this arrangement while serving as choirmaster in Hallein, Austria. Sheet music at Silent Night — The Original Sheet Music (http://stillenacht.tripod.com/ , accessed December 31, 2006) created by Frank Petersohn (Peterson?). Return

2. Source: Josef Gassner, “Franz Xaver Gruber's manuscripts of Silent Night, Holy Night, with a short history of the carol,” from Alois Schmaus and Lenz Kriss-Rettenbeck, Silent Night, Holy Night: History and Circulation Of A Carol (Innsbruck-Munich: University Press, 1968). Return

3. The "mice" story is unfortunately reproduced by Paul Gallico in The Story Of Silent Night (New York: Crown Publishers, 1967). That bit of fiction, together with invented dialogue, makes it difficult to sort fact from fiction in this volume. Based on other research, however, it is clear that Gallico's "history" is predominately fiction. His volume does contains a translation. A copy can be seen at Jako Olivier's Silent Night Web: http://www.silentnight.web.za/translate/eng.htm. Return

4. The other six carols in this publication include: "Earth Today Rejoices," "Good Christian Men Rejoice," "Here Is Joy For Every Age," "Earthly Friends Will Change And Falter," "Royal Day That Chasest Gloom," and "Good King Wenceslas." Return

5. At the time, Mr. Hollister was Superintendent of the Sunday-School of St. Paul's Church, New Haven, CN. Return

6. Also noted by Rev. Byron Edward Underwood, the author of  "Bishop John Freeman Young: Translator of 'Stille Nacht'", The Hymn (official publication of The Hymn Society of America), October 1957, pp. 123-130). This is a significant article in the history of the John Freeman Young translation. Return

Correction:

I had previously been under the mistaken impression that Bishop John Freeman Young had been the author of the hymn "Wonderful Night." However, in Great Hymns of the Church (J. H. Hopkins, ed., New York: James Pott & Co., 1887), credit for the lyrics is given to Dr. Joh. Frederick Meyer (1772-1848); the translation was provided by the Rev. Milo Mahan, D. D.; the tune "Christmas Eve" was composed by Dr. Conrad Kocher.

Doug Anderson
January 18, 2007

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Sources:

  • Bill Egan authored an article titled Silent Night: The Song Heard 'Round The World.  It can be found at Jako Oliver's Silent Night Homepage, which also contains a large number of translations in numerous languages. Bill's article contains a good deal of fascinating detail concerning Silent Night. Also, take a look at the Silent Night Museum, a cyber-museum was created by Bill Egan to provide a world wide audience with the true story behind the composition of "Silent Night" and learn about its creators, Joseph Mohr and Franz Gruber. Bill is also the author of the article A Christmas Treasure.
  • The Silent Night Museum at Oberndorf contains an autographed manuscript which is the earliest version of "Silent Night!" known to date. It reveals information about the authors of the carol which was not known until the manuscript's discovery in 1995. To date, this is the only copy of the carol from the hand of Joseph Mohr. There is also an on-line museum.
  • Stille Nacht Gesellschaft contains information about the Silent Night Association, as well as a history of the song, the authentic text and sheet music, biographies of both Mohr and Gruber, and links to other Silent Night sites.
  • Josef Gassner, “Franz Xaver Gruber's manuscripts of Silent Night, Holy Night, with a short history of the carol,” from Alois Schmaus and Lenz Kriss-Rettenbeck, Silent Night, Holy Night: History and Circulation Of A Carol (Innsbruck-Munich: University Press, 1968). This article contains some excellent biographical notes concerning Mohr and Gruber, as well as an extensive analysis of the seven known manuscripts of the carol created by Gruber. The book also contains numerous translations of Stille Nacht. This is an excellent resource, if you can obtain a copy. "Version VII," above, is from this source.
  • Silent Night Web, contains much interesting material concerning the carol.
  • Ian Bradley, The Penguin Book of Carols (London: Penguin, 1999)
  • William C. Egan, The History of Carols
  • John Clark Hollister, ed., The Sunday-School Service and Tune Book (New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, 1863, 1865).
  • Keyte and Parrott, eds., The Shorter New Oxford Book of Carols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993)
  • Keyte and Parrott, eds., The New Oxford Book of Carols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), citing Dr. Joseph [Josef] Gassner, Silent Night, Holy Night: History and circulation of a carol, 1968, for having disposed of many myths concerning the carol.
  • Robert Joseph, The Christmas Book
  • Notes from the Hymnuts
  • Larry Marietta's Music Notes, Sunday Morning Services at FCCB (First Congregational Church of Berkeley),  December 14, 1997
  • Pennington, Edgar Legare, "John Freeman Young, Second Bishop of Florida," (Hartford, Conn.: Church Missions Publishing Co., 1939). This detailed, 63-page biography emphasizes his service as Bishop of Florida, 1867-1885, but makes little mention of his musical endeavors, and no mention of Silent Night. There was, unfortunately, no photograph or drawing of Bishop Young. The majority footnotes were to Diocese of Florida Convention Journals. No other published biography was mentioned. No other biography is listed in WorldCat.
  • Elizabeth Poston, The Penguin Book of Christmas Carols (London: Penguin, 1965)
  • William L. Simon, ed., The Reader's Digest Merry Christmas Songbook (Pleasantville, NY: Readers Digest Association, revised 2003)
  • William Studwell, The Christmas Carol Reader (New York: Harrington Park Press, 1995)
  • J. Freeman Young, ed., Carols for Christmas Tide (New York: Daniel Dana, Jr., 1859)
  • Underwood, Byron Edward, "Bishop John Freeman Young: Translator of 'Stille Nacht'", The Hymn (official publication of The Hymn Society of America, October 1957, pp. 123-130)

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