According to legend, the popular Christmas carol we all know today called “Silent Night” was first heard 180 years ago. The carol was first enjoyed in a village church in Austria.
Sung at the midnight mass in the St. Nicholas Church in Oberndorf, the congregation heard the arrangement for the first time as the choir repeated the last two lines in a four-part harmony. Its peaceful, serene and beautiful tune would soon find its way around the world and into the homes of all Christians during the holiday season.
Silent Night has now been translated into hundreds of languages. Christians from all over the world enjoy singing and listening to the song on Christmas Eve and the days leading up to the holiday season.
Of course, over the years, countless stories have been told about the creation of Silent Night and its impact on the world. Since the carol was written with a guitar versus accompanied by an organ, as was typically the tradition, some say that mice had eaten the insides of the organ, forcing the choir to adapt and use a guitar accompaniment instead.
Others say that Silent Night was sung once and then utterly forgotten. However, there are many different manuscript arrangements of the carol by its original creators, pastor Fr. Joseph Mohr and the choir director Franz Xaver Gruber, that prove otherwise. These arrangements are from 1820 to 1855 with various alterations.
The lyrics were written by Joseph Mohr in 1816 when he was a young priest and many have thought he wrote the words while walking in the countryside to visit someone in his parish. Once the words were sung, however, it was impossible to contain its popularity.
The song started to find its way into the international community by way of the master organ repairman that came to work on the organ in subsequent years of the carol’s creation. Karl Mauracher brought copies of the tune with lyrics to his home and the popularity of Silent Night began. Originally, the name of the song was “Tyrolean Folk Song.”
When two families of folk singers incorporated the song into their repertoire, the carol was accessible to many more thousands of people. The carol was sung to the Emperor Franz I and Tsar Alexander I as well.
Finally, in 1839, the song was sung in America for the first time outside Trinity Church in New York City. The impact of the song was immediate and listeners fell in love with its clean and strong message of peace.
Silent Night Holy Night
Text: Joseph Mohr, 1792-1848; trans. by John F. Young, 1820-1885
Music: Franz Gruber, 1787-1863
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.
Silent night, holy night,
shepherds quake at the sight;
glories stream from heaven afar,
heavenly hosts sing Alleluia!
Christ the Savior is born,
Christ the Savior is born!
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.
Silent night, holy night,
wondrous star, lend thy light;
with the angels let us sing,
Alleluia to our King;
Christ the Savior is born,
Christ the Savior is born!
Here is a guitar friendly arrangement of Silent Night for singing with friends.
One of The Most Famous Christmas Carols
For years, the popular belief was that the composer of the tune was Haydn, Beethoven or Mozart. However, the mystery was solved less than a decade ago when the first arrangement was discovered with Joseph Mohr’s name in the upper right-hand corner.
Finally, the true composer was attributed to one of the most famous Christmas carols of the holiday season. With its simple beauty and powerful message of peace, this carol has gained international fame and popularity and is dearly loved by Christians during the Christmas season.
Learn an instrumental guitar arrangement of ‘Silent Night‘.