THURSDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2023 SILENT NIGHT
This week, I've been writing about Christmas Hymns. Today, it is Silent Night.
"Silent Night" is about a calm and bright silent night and the wonder of a tender and mild newborn child, words written in 1816 by a young priest in Austria, Joseph Mohr, not long after the Napoleonic wars had taken their toll.
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"The backstory is that the priest went for a walk before he wrote it, and he looked out over a very quiet, winter-laden town," says composer/conductor John Conahan. "He was inspired...the town was at peace."
It was Christmas Eve, 1818, when the now-famous carol was first performed as Stille Nacht Heilige Nacht. Joseph Mohr, the young priest who wrote the lyrics, played the guitar and sang along with Franz Xaver Gruber, the choir director who had written the melody.
An organ builder and repair man working at the church took a copy of the six-verse song to his home village. It was picked up and spread by two families of traveling folk singers who performed around northern Europe. In 1834, the Strasser family performed it for the King of Prussia. In 1839, the Rainer family of singers debuted the carol outside Trinity Church in New York City.
The composition evolved, and was translated into over 300 languages with many different arrangements for various voices and ensembles. It was sung in churches, in town squares, even on the battlefield during World War I, when soldiers sang carols from home during a temporary truce on Christmas Eve. "Silent Night," by 1914, known around the world, was sung simultaneously in French, German and English.
Over the years, the carol's mystique grew with its popularity. For decades after the original manuscript was lost, some speculated that the music had been written by Haydn, Mozart, or Beethoven. In 1994, an original manuscript was found in Mohr's handwriting, with Gruber named as composer.
Today, the Franz Xaver Gruber Museum in Hallein and the Joseph Mohr School in Wagrain, Austria, honor the creators of this classic carol. The Stille Nacht Gesellschaft—or Silent Night Society—hosts a virtual Silent Night museum, tracks events, and promotes the use of all six verses, which, in the words of the Silent Night Society president, "encourage peace and demand responsibility for the globe."
The English version of "Silent Night" is typically sung in three verses corresponding with the original 1, 6, and 2.
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.
And, in German:
Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht,
Alles schläft; einsam wacht
Nur das traute hochheilige Paar.
Holder Knabe im lockigen Haar,
Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh!
Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh!
Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht,
Hirten erst kundgemacht
Durch der Engel Halleluja,
Tönt es laut von fern und nah:
Christ, der Retter ist da!
Christ, der Retter ist da!
Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht,
Gottes Sohn, o wie lacht
Lieb' aus deinem göttlichen Mund,
Da uns schlägt die rettende Stund'.
Christ, in deiner Geburt!
Christ, in deiner Geburt!
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Read and sing it to yourself - along. The magic of that silent night - the babe in the stable, the mother and child.
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LOVE WINS
LOVE TRANSFORMS
KAREN ANNE WHITE, ©, DECEMBER 21, 2023
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