Musical settings Silent-Night-Chapel in Oberndorf on the site where the song was first performed The carol has been translated into about 300 languages. For example, Nur das traute hochheilige Paar, Holder Knabe im lockigen Haar is translated by Young: 'Round yon Virgin mother and child, Holy infant so tender and mild' whereas Klein rewords it: 'Round yon godly tender pair, Holy infant with curly hair', a translation closer to the original. Whenever possible, (and mostly), Klein leaves the Young translation unchanged, but occasionally Klein (and Mohr) varies markedly. In 1998 the Silent Night Museum in Salzburg commissioned a new English translation by Bettina Klein of Mohr's German lyrics. Today, the lyrics and melody are in the public domain, although newer translations usually are not. 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 6Ĩ time and siciliana rhythm. 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. Original melodyĪudio playback is not supported in your browser. This is the earliest manuscript that exists and the only one in Mohr's handwriting. 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. However, a manuscript was discovered in 1995 in Mohr's handwriting and dated by researchers as c. 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. During this period, the melody changed slightly to become the version that is commonly played today. By the 1840s the song was well known in Lower Saxony and was reported to be a favourite of Frederick William IV of Prussia. The Rainers were already singing it around Christmas 1819, and they 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. From there, two travelling families of folk singers, the Strassers and the Rainers, included the tune in their shows. Īccording to Gruber, Karl Mauracher, an organ builder who serviced the instrument at the Oberndorf church, was enamoured of the song, and took the composition home with him to the Zillertal. It is unknown what inspired Mohr to write the lyrics, or what prompted him to create a new carol. The church was eventually destroyed by repeated flooding and replaced with the Silent-Night-Chapel. On Christmas Eve 1818, Mohr brought the words to Gruber and asked him to compose a melody and guitar accompaniment for that night's mass, after river flooding had possibly damaged the church organ. The melody was composed by Franz Xaver Gruber, schoolmaster and organist in the nearby village of Arnsdorf, now part of Lamprechtshausen. In the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, he had written the poem ' Stille Nacht' in 1816 at Mariapfarr, the hometown of his father in the Salzburg Lungau region, where Joseph had worked as an assistant priest. A young Catholic priest, Father Joseph Mohr, had come to Oberndorf the year before. ' Stille Nacht' 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.

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