Robert Hover
Perhaps the best-known Christmas carol of all time, having been translated in 44 different languages, “Silent Night, Holy Night” has an interesting story about its creation.
On Christmas Eve in 1818, Franz Gruber, the church organist, had to quickly rearrange the planned music after the organ of his small village church, St. Nicholas in Obendorf, Austria, had broken down. Needing music to go along with the poetic lyrics of Rev. Joseph Mohr, a Catholic priest, the organist composed a melody for two solo voices, a chorus, and guitar. As a result of the creative labors of both pastor and organist, the Christmas music repertoire was rewarded with what would become one of the most devotional carols.
The source of inspiration for Rev. Mohr’s poem, probably written two years earlier when the priest was in the service of another parish church in Austria, is open to some speculation. But one account with a plausible ring to it suggests a humble scenario.
Accordingly, the Rev. Mohr was visited by a villager who came to announce the birth of a child in the house of a young woodsman. At the behest of the anxious father, the priest quickly prodded through the snow to bring words of good cheer and blessings for the young mother and the house. The Rev. Mohr, though weary from the trek through the heavy snow, was quite impressed by the pervasive and comforting silence, the snow, and the starry night. Upon his arrival at the woodsman’s humble abode, he was further moved when he gazed upon the small, rough-hewn cradle where the baby lay and the woodchopper tending to his wife at a nearby bed of pine logs.
The priest was transfixed by the scene and overcome by a feeling of radiance and holiness about the place. It struck him that the surroundings bore a strong resemblance to how the birth of another child, the infant Jesus, had been described eighteen hundred years earlier. After blessing the woodsman’s home, the Rev. Mohr returned to his study and began reflecting on the scene he had just witnessed. While looking out at the snowy mountains and stars, he murmured to himself, “Silent Night, Holy Night.” In his holy mood, he may have written the simple words of six stanzas that softly proclaimed the joy and peace of the first Christmas.
Six or seven years after its initial church performance, an organ repairman, hired to reconstruct the organ at St. Nicholas Church, found a copy of the carol at the church and received permission to take it home with him. Soon after, traveling singing groups began to sing “Silent Night, Holy Night” in different parts of Austria and ultimately in other regions of the world, further spreading the carol’s popularity. The song would become exceptionally popular in the United States after World War I, when returning servicemen remembered hearing it sung by German soldiers during Christmas truces.
For a time, the carol was thought to be either of anonymous origin or from the hand of Johann Michael Haydn (1737-1806), who was noted for his compositions of sacred music, as well as being the brother of the more famous Joseph Haydn. The carol was probably first published in the 1838-1840 period, in a collection of “four genuine Tyrolean songs.” One English translation reduced it to three stanzas, and a widely accepted version was completed in 1863 by the Rev. John Freeman Young (1820-1885), who later served as Episcopal bishop of Florida in 1867.
The wonderful result of these developments was a simple, loving, tender song, resonating even today with the true meaning of Christmas. Is it any surprise, then, that “Silent Night” now ranks as the most-recorded song in history?