The Hymns and Carols of Christmas

Silent Night, Holy Night

Words: Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!, Rev. Joseph Mohr, 1816
Verses 1-3 translated by Bishop John Freeman Young (1820-1885)
Verses 4-6 translated by Silent Night Historian William C. Egan
(Reproduced through the kind permission of Mr. Egan)

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

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

See Notes and Links to Translations of "Stille Nacht"

1. 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!

2. Silent night! Holy night!
Shepherds quake at the sight!3
Glories stream from Heaven afar,
Heavenly Hosts sing Alleluia!
Christ, the Saviour, is born!
Christ, the Saviour, is born!

3. 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!

4. Silent Night, Holy Night
Here at last, healing light
From the heavenly kingdom sent,
Abundant grace for our intent.
Jesus, salvation for all.
Jesus, salvation for all.

5. Silent Night! Holy Night"
Sleeps the world in peace tonight.
God sends his Son to earth below
A Child from whom all blessings flow
Jesus, embraces mankind.
Jesus, embraces mankind.

6. Silent Night, Holy Night
Mindful of mankind's plight
The Lord in Heav'n on high decreed
From earthly woes we would be freed
Jesus, God's promise for peace.
Jesus, God's promise for peace.

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. 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. Some editors substitute: Shepherds first saw the light. Return

Note: the punctuation of the lyrics in the musical score differ from the punctuation given in the text as found in J. F. Freeman's Carols For Christmas Tide (1859). I have followed the punctuation and capitalization as given in the text. A scan of the original can be found below.

This translation, and the translations of others, are frequently "improved" by the editors of the assorted hymnals and carol collections. Some additional and alternate verses are noted below. One example of such a minor change occurs in  Hezekiah Butterworth's The Story of the Tunes (1890, p. 198) where the last two lines in first verse are changed to: "Falls a heavenly peace."

A few other examples:

Fourth Verse, Anonymous, erroneously attributed to Bishop Young:

4. Silent night, Holy night,
Wondrous star, lend thy light
With the angels let us sing
Alleluia to our King
Christ the Savior is here,
Jesus the Savior is here!

Alternate Second Verse from The Methodist Hymnal (1932):

2. Silent night, holiest night!
Darkness flies, all is light!
Shepherds hear the angels sing;
"Allelujah! Hail the King!
Jesus, the Savior is here,
Jesus, the Savior is here."

Alternate Fourth Verse: Wings of Song (Unity Village, MO: Unity Books, 1984)

4. Holy light, perfect light,
Christ of God, Oh, how bright
Doth Thy Spirit shine always!
Healing, blessing man each day
With Thy heavenly love,
With Thy heavenly love.

Alternate Fourth Verse: Book of Worship for United States Forces (1974)

4. Silent night, holy night,
Wondrous star, lend your light
With the angels let us sing
Alleluia to our King
Christ the Savior is born,
Christ the Savior is born!

Graphic Line

Sheet Music from Rev. J. Freeman Young, ed., Carols for Christmas Tide (New York: Daniel Dana, Jr., 1859), #1
SATB: MIDI / Noteworthy Composer / PDF / XML

High Resolution: Cover, Silent Night

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)

A. B. Goodrich, ed., A New Service And Tune Book For Sunday Schools (New York: Gen. Prot. Episc. S. S. Union and Church Book Society, 1863, New Edition, Enlarged, 1866), # 147, p. 133.

Sheet Music for "Holy Night" from Charles L. Hutchins, ed., The Sunday-School Hymnal and Service Book (Published by the Editor, Medford, Mass., 1871, 1878). Carol 17, pp. 198-9.

Sheet music from the Sunday School Book, General Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (Philadelphia: Lutheran Book Store, 1873, 1883), No. 65, p. 114.
Special acknowledgement was made to Rev. A. B. Goodrich for using tunes and hymns from his New Service and Tune Book for Sunday-Schools.

Sheet Music from J. P. McCaskey, ed., Franklin Square Song Collection, No. 1. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1881, p. 129.

Attribution is to "Michael Haydn." This is, presumably, Johann Michael Haydn (1737-1806), younger brother of Franz Joseph Haydn. See Wikipedia: Michael Haydn (accessed February 28, 2007). The words are identical to the Young translation; the score is substantially the same. The attribution to Haydn occurs with considerable frequency even after proof that Gruber was the author in the 1880s.
Also found in J. P. McCaskey, Favorite Songs for School and Home (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1899), p. 173.

 Sheet Music "A Child's Carol," "Original Melody. Harmony by A. Haupt" from J. H. Hopkins, ed., Great Hymns of the Church Compiled by the Late Right Reverend John Freeman Young (New York: James Pott & Company, 1887), #50, p. 81.

This is the only 19th century attribution of lyrics by Rev. Young, an oversight that would not be corrected until 1957 by the Rev. Byron Edward Underwood. See Note 5, below.

Sheet Music from Rev. Charles Lewis Hutchins, Carols Old and Carols New (Boston: Parish Choir, 1916), #28
Melody Line: MIDI / Noteworthy Composer / PDF / XML
3 Part Harmony: MIDI / Noteworthy Composer / PDF / XML

Sheet music of Carl Reinecke arrangement from "A Hymnal as Authorized and Approved for Use by the General Convention" by Episcopal Church, 1916, Page 696.

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

Also found in William Lee Hunton, ed., Favorite Hymns (Philadelphia: The General Counsel Publication House, 1917), p. 32, together with one of the worse pieces of "Silent Night" fiction ever published (Mohr, widowed on Christmas Eve, wrote this carol to help comfort his now motherless children.). A more knowledgeable individual who had checked out this book from the library wrote this in the margin: "Ha! Ha! What drivel!! He was a Roman Catholic priest!!"

     I will be putting together a web page that includes this and other pieces of flagrant fiction that masquerades as the truth, thereby misleading the reading public.

Editor's Note:

In 1859, Rev. Young published a 16-page pamphlet titled Carols For Christmas Tide. The first of the seven carols in this pamphlet was "Silent Night, Holy Night." 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."

Verses 1 through 3, above, are reproduced from Bishop Young's 1859 version, including punctuation and capitalization. These verses correspond to verses 1, 6 and 2 of Stille Nacht. High Resolution scans from Bishop Young's 1859 publication: Cover, Silent Night

Mr. Egan's translation correspond to verses 3, 4, and 5 of the original. His translation was posted to the Christmas International Group at Yahoo.com on May 17, 2007. This translation was created at the request of Austria's Silent Night Society in 2006 (link below). His translation, together with Bishop Young's translation, is combined in the original order created by Rev. Mohr and distributed by the tourist office in Oberndorf, Austria: Silent Night, Holy Night. For more information, see these posts by Mr. Egan to the Christmas International Group:

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 Hollister4 (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."5 However, Rev. Young's name did not appear on the page; neither did the names of Mohr or Gruber. This would be a harbinger; Young's relationship to his famous translation would remain unknown until Underwood's 1957 article. Hollister accurately reprinted the music and the translation; this would not always be true, as evidenced above. Hymns and Music For The Young - Part First was published in 1860.

But although Young's name did not appear on the "Silent Night" page, it did appear on another. In addition to this hymn, Hollister reproduced four other hymns from Young's Hymns and Music For The Young:

The first three have only the following attribution: "From 'Hymns and Music for the Young,' by permission of the author." However, "All Thy Works, O Heavenly Father" had that attribution, plus one other: Rev. J. F. Young. This, then, is the only clue which might have led the careful scholar from Hollister's "Silent Night" to John Freeman Young. Evidently, few made the connection. However, that connection alone would have been an unsupported leap, as "Hymns and Music for the Young" contained other hymns not authored by Bishop Young.

What did make the case was 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 (although the author of the original lyrics is listed as "Anonymous"). This would be, however, the last association of the name and the hymn until Rev. Byron Edward Underwood's 1957 article.

For additional information, see Notes About Silent Night, Holy Night. For additional biographical details, see John Freeman Young.

Note:

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

5. 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), October 1957, pp. 123-130). This is a significant article in the history of the John Freeman Young translation. Because it is under copyright, it is not reproduced here. 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

Public Domain Recordings:

A Garritan Community Christmas for MP3s:
    Silent Night, Dan Powers
    Silent Night, David Morehead
    Silent Night, Sam Ferrara

Instrumental sheet music to this and 12 other carols may be downloaded from Sally DeFord Music, http://www.defordmusic.com/carolsforpiano.htm (site accessed September 30, 2006). An MP3 of this arrangement is also available at that page.

 

Click here to join ChristmasInternational

Click to join Christmas International

 

Click here to join SilentNightConnection

Click to join Silent Night Connection

 

Print Page Return Home Page Close Window