"Silent Night" (German: Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht) is a popular Christmas carol, composed in 1818 by Franz Xaver Gruber to lyrics by Joseph Mohr in the small town of Oberndorf bei Salzburg, Austria. It was declared an intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO in 2011. The song has been recorded by a large number of singers from every music genre. The version sung by Bing Crosby is the third best-selling single of all-time.
Video Silent Night
History
The song was first performed on Christmas Eve 1818 at St Nicholas parish church in Oberndorf, a village in the Austrian Empire on the Salzach river in present-day Austria. A young priest, Father Joseph Mohr, had come to Oberndorf the year before. He had written the lyrics of the song "Stille Nacht" in 1816 at Mariapfarr, the hometown of his father in the Salzburg Lungau region, where Joseph had worked as a co-adjutor.
The melody was composed by Franz Xaver Gruber, schoolmaster and organist in the nearby village of Arnsdorf. Before Christmas Eve, Mohr brought the words to Gruber and asked him to compose a melody and guitar accompaniment for the Christmas Eve mass. It is unknown what inspired Mohr to write the lyrics, or what prompted him to create a new carol.
According to Gruber, Karl Mauracher, an organ builder who serviced the instrument at the Obendorf church, was enamoured with the song, and took the composition home with him to the Zillertal. From there, two travelling families of folk singers, the Strassers and the Rainers, included the tune in their shows. The Rainers were already singing it around Christmas 1819, and once performed it for an audience that included Franz I of Austria and Alexander I of Russia, as well as making the first performance of the song in the U.S., in New York City in 1839. By the 1840s the song was well known in Lower Saxony and was reported to be a favourite of Frederick William IV of Prussia. During this period, the melody changed slightly to become the version that is commonly played today.
Over the years, because the original manuscript had been lost, Mohr's name was forgotten and although Gruber was known to be the composer, many people assumed the melody was composed by a famous composer, and it was variously attributed to Haydn, Mozart, or Beethoven. However, a manuscript was discovered in 1995 in Mohr's handwriting and dated by researchers as c. 1820. It states that Mohr wrote the words in 1816 when he was assigned to a pilgrim church in Mariapfarr, Austria, and shows that the music was composed by Gruber in 1818. This is the earliest manuscript that exists and the only one in Mohr's handwriting.
The first edition was published by Friese in 1833 in a collection of Four Genuine Tyrolean Songs, with the following musical text:
The contemporary version, as in the choral example below, is:
Maps Silent Night
Translations
In 1859, the Episcopal priest John Freeman Young, then serving at Trinity Church, New York City, wrote and published the English translation that is most frequently sung today, translated from three of Mohr's original six verses. The version of the melody that is generally used today is a slow, meditative lullaby or pastorale, differing slightly (particularly in the final strain) from Gruber's original, which was a "moderato" tune in 6
8 time and siciliana rhythm. Today, the lyrics and melody are in the public domain.
The carol has been translated into about 140 languages.
Lyrics
Musical settings
Max Reger quotes the tune in the Christmas section of his organ pieces Sieben Stücke, Op. 145.
Alfred Schnittke composed an arrangement of Stille Nacht for violin and piano in 1978, as a holiday greeting for violinist Gidon Kremer. Due its dissonant and nightmarish character, the miniature caused a scandal in Austria.
In film
Several theatrical and television films depict how the song was ostensibly written. Most of them however are based on a spurious legend about the organ breaking down at the church in Oberndorf, which appeared in a fictional story published in the U.S. in the 1930s.
- The Legend of Silent Night (1968) TV film directed by Daniel Mann
- Silent Night, Holy Night (1976) animated short film by Hanna-Barbera.
- Silent Mouse (1988) television special directed and produced by Robin Crichton and narrated by Lynn Redgrave.
- Buster & Chauncey's Silent Night (1998) direct-to-video animated featurette
- Stille Nacht (2012) directed by Christian Vuissa
- The First Silent Night (2014), documentary narrated by Simon Callow
References
External links
- Media related to Stille Nacht at Wikimedia Commons
- Translation of all six verses of the German original
- Free arrangements for piano and voice from Cantorion.org
- Silent Night Chapel, origin of song
- Schnittke's version on YouTube
Source of article : Wikipedia
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