Silent
Night: How it all started
"It was
December 24th 1818, when Joseph Mohr of the newly established
parish of St. Nicola in Oberndorf (he was the assisting priest
then) came up to the organist Franz Xaver Gruber (who was also the
teacher of Arnsdorf, a village close by) with a poem. Joseph Mohr
asked, if Gruber could compose a song for two solo voices and choir
accompanied by a guitar". With these words Gruber (composer)
described the beginning of today's worldfamous Christmas
song.
Most likely,
the lyrics were already written in 1816 by Mohr, who worked in
Mariapfarr then, in form of a poem. Why this poem became a
Christmas song two years later is subject to speculation. The
legend goes, that St. Nicola's organ was broken that Christmas eve
in 1818. Out of that reason both creators composesd this carol for
soprano, tenor and choir to be perfomed for the first time this
special night in the church of St. Nicola in Oberndorf.
This carol
was later on primarily performed in the area where both creators
worked, without their names being mentioned. In 1866 the carol was
first published in a songbook for churches in the area of Salzburg.
Before that, the Rainer and Strasser families took the song to the
Zillertal of Tyrol (1819), to Leipzig (1832) and finally to New
York (1839).
Christian
missionaries spread the carol at the turn of the century to all
continents. Today, over 300 translations into different languages
and dialects are known. |