Silent Night: Origins of a Beloved Christmas Song | Op. 9
Silent Night was composed in Oberndorf, a small village in Austria, but spread across the world as the most performed Christmas song. Guest Hermann Schneider explains the history of "Silent Night" and why it captures our hearts.
In this podcast, you’ll:
See the humble Austrian beginnings of the world's best-known Christmas song
Learn how life in the region inspired the lyrics and music by Joseph Mohr and Franz Xaver Gruber
Understand the elements that fueled the song's international success
Hear the Silent Night song performed on a piano of the song's era
For the best experience, please watch the video at the top of the page.
Episode Transcript
DANIEL ADAM MALTZ: Grüß Sie from Oberndorf, Austria. Welcome to Opus 9 of Classical Cake, the podcast where we discuss topics relating to Viennese classical music and Austrian culture while enjoying one of Vienna's delicious cakes. I'm your host, Daniel Adam Maltz.
Silent Night. You’ve probably already heard it several times during this holiday season. But, did you know that “Silent Night” or Stille Nacht in German, originated in Austria?
The first performance of “Silent Night” was in Oberndorf on Christmas Eve 1818. In the 200 years since, “Silent Night” has been translated into over 100 languages and is – by far – the most recorded Christmas song.
My guest today is Hermann Schneider, an official guide for the Holy Night Area. We’ll be talking with him in the Silent Night Chapel in Oberndorf. Herr Schneider, thank you for joining me.
HERMANN SCHNEIDER: Thank you for inviting me.
Featured Sweet: Elisenlebkuchen [0:59]
MALTZ: Our cake today is… well, it’s technically a cookie: Elisenlebkuchen, a traditional Christmas treat.
This cookie is almost like a cake because it is so moist inside.
It has no flour; rather, it’s made with ground almonds.
There’s a wafer on the bottom and a glaze on top.
We’re eating a version from an Austrian bakery that specializes in different types of lebkuchen.
So let's dig in.
Who wrote Silent Night? [1:29]
MALTZ: There are quite a few legends around Silent Night, so I'd like to separate the facts from the fiction.
The first legend is that Silent Night was written by either Mozart, Beethoven, Joseph Haydn or Haydn’s Salzburg-based brother Michael Haydn.
Who actually wrote the lyrics and the music for Silent Night?
SCHNEIDER: Well, the best document is in the Salzburg Museum. It's an authentic statement called Authentische Veranlassung. (Franz Xaver) Gruber wrote it 36 years after it was written for the first time — on demand from the archbishop of Salzburg — from the monastery abbey St. Peter because there was a demand from Berlin and they wanted to know.
King Friedrich, the Prussian king wanted to know who wrote it. So, that’s why he sat down and wrote it. But it was really 36 years later [that Gruber officially claimed credit].
MALTZ: We'll talk more about Joseph Mohr [creator of “Silent Night” lyrics] and Franz Xaver Gruber [composer] in a bit.
Mice in the Church Organ [2:30]
MALTZ: The song was originally orchestrated for two solo voices, choir, and a guitar. The guitar was an unusual instrument to use at a church, so it sparked the legend of very hungry mice ruining the church organ.
Did mice actually have a hand in the creation of Silent Night?
SCHNEIDER: Not as far as we know. That must stay a legend.
But, we know what's really true. In the following year, a Tyrolean organ builder, Karl Mauracher, came to inspect the organ and reported the pipes were in a very bad state. And that's really… that's what it was. It was really unusual for a guitar to be in performance in the church.
Mr. Mohr, when he came here as an assistant priest, he didn't get on very well with the vicar here. We don't know why, but it was so bar that the vicar had ladies in the house that cooked for him and he didn't allow Mr. Mohr to join his meals.
So, Mohr had to go out to taverns and pubs and eat there. After a year, the vicar wrote to the archbishop, “He has got an unbelievable behavior. He talks like the normal people. He even plays the guitar in pubs.”
So, that's why he didn't dare to sing [Silent Night] during the Holy midnight mass. He waited until the end and went in front. There was a common altar where people got the holy communion. That's where they went in front and that's when they sang it because they thought “Well if I play it with the guitar and sing it during the holy midnight mass, that will be another scandal.”
MALTZ: So you're saying that it was written for guitar because the organ was unusable?
SCHNEIDER: Yes.
MALTZ: Interesting.
Forbidden to sing until Christmas eve? [4:30]
MALTZ: The third story is that, in Austria, the song may not be played publicly before Christmas Eve and that commercial use is forbidden. Is this true?
SCHNEIDER: That's not true. I mean, it's not forbidden, but nobody sings it. But now it can be heard, especially here on the market, even down to supermarkets where they keep playing it.
I had one group from Iceland and they said it's strictly forbidden by us. Nobody sings it before Holy Night evening. When they were here, they said that, “It's the only one – only once we’ll do it here because we're in Oberndorf. Otherwise, we never sing it.” People don't sing it before — I think there's no reason to sing “Silent Night” before Christmas.
Who was Joseph Mohr? [5:17]
MALTZ: So now let's go back to the time when Silent Night was written.
Joseph Mohr was born out of wedlock, something quite scandalous in the 1700s.
But he was known as a good musician and sang in the choir of St. Peter's Abbey in Salzburg. He received a quality education, and because he was born to an unwed mother, the pope gave him special permission to be ordained as a priest in 1815, the same year the Napoleonic Wars ended.
Village Life When Mohr Wrote the “Silent Night” Lyrics [6:43]
In 1816, Salzburg returned to Austria, and Joseph Mohr wrote a poem that year that would become the lyrics to Silent Night.
What was life like in this region in 1816?
The Salzach River separates Oberndorf, Austria and Laufen, Germany
SCHNEIDER: Going back to the education. He really gets a good education because there was a vicar, Hiernle. He was the leader of the Salzburg Cathedral choir, and he supported the family — especially Joseph Mohr. He made him able to go to the Lyceum, which was the grammar school at that time, and then helped him to study — at first philosophy in Kremsmünster for one-and-a-half years and then theology in Salzburg.
And that's right, he needed an absolution because – being an illegitimate child – he needed it. But, I think it came from the archbishop of Salzburg, not from the pope. And then, he managed to become a priest.
And life, what was it like? It was very poor because there were six years of occupation from Napoleon and his troops.
You can imagine: war is always a cruel thing but, at that time, soldiers just took everything that they could get ahold of. They slaughtered the last chicken and took the last cabbage in the house and, for six years, all the husbands and sons were in military service themselves, so there were only the wives and children at home. So it was really a poor time.
And then when that was gone, this Napoleon, there was another tragedy that was Volcano Tambora in Indonesia. It erupted in late 1815 and brought the following year for Europe, the “Year Without Summer.”
It was not only known in Austria, but it was also known in Germany, part of France, part of Italy. There was so much ash in the atmosphere from the volcano, it went halfway over the globe and that was the year without summer.
People probably didn't even know what was the reason for it. They didn't have enough to eat. There were really thousands of people just dying from hunger.
MALTZ: Wow, it must have been quite a mysterious happening for the people. I mean, obviously, now you can say we know that it's the volcano from Indonesia.
SCHNEIDER: Yes, exactly.
MALTZ: But at the time they would have had no idea.
Simplicity of “Silent Night” [9:17]
MALTZ: Silent Night was written in German, something that was highly unusual at the time because most religious songs were written in Latin. What does it imply about Mohr's intent?
SCHNEIDER: I think that was just meant for that one evening. It was just the situation that the organ wasn't to be played and Joseph Mohr came with that poem — the lyrics. And, really, Franz Xaver Gruber must have written it on the same day. He was the musician, he was playing the organ here at the church, and in Arnsdorf where he was teaching.
And that's the only reason – that's right, normally songs were written in Latin. I wouldn't know any other reason. It was just done for that one evening, and he came with the poem. We just know, since 1955, that he had the basic lyrics two years before. But, until 1955, we thought that it was done all on the same day.
MALTZ: So something that the original intent would have just been a nice thing for that night for the people in the village of Oberndorf.
SCHNEIDER: Yes, and people could sing with it straightaway. Gruber said later on ‘simple music’ because it was written in D Major.
And, that's also the big thing about the song and why it got spread so well over the whole world – because missionaries who brought it then into Africa, Indonesia, and other countries – they noticed people without school educations could repeat it.
The song was so simple in tuning, and they could just join in. That's why it's translated into so many dialects.
MALTZ: It's interesting to think why things stick, because Joseph Haydn, for example, was court composer for the Esterhazy’s for 30, 40 years and was often writing music just for one night. But we're still listening to it all this time later.
SCHNEIDER: That's right.
Changes to Original Music and Words [10:15]
MALTZ: The lyrics were written in 1816, two years before, as you said. But, they weren't set to music until Mohr asked Franz Xaver Gruber to compose something on Christmas Eve in 1818.
That evening, after the Christmas Mass at the Church of Saint Nicholas, Mohr and Gruber debuted Silent Night. But there were slight differences in the original tune, versus the modern tune best known today. What caused these changes?
SCHNEIDER: The changes were mainly from those people who spread it out. That was going back to that organ builder Mauracher who took the song to Tyrol. And then those two families, the Strasser's mainly, who spread the song around Europe later on. One man in Leipzig, Mr. Friese, wrote it down and he made the first changes in a few small things and in text as well, I think, a few words. But that was the only one and that's why Gruber, 36 years later, rewrote the original in his authentic arrangement.
Encouraging the Original Song [11:25]
MALTZ: The Stille Nacht Gesellschaft, or the Silent Night Organization, encourages the use of the original tune. So which do you personally prefer?
SCHNEIDER: I think there's no… people just swapped from one to the other, so people don't even notice, I think. Sometimes they say, “That's the original tune,” but some people just carry on with their own words. I don't think it gets so much attention, whether it was the original or if it was changed. People don't even know it, I think.
MALTZ: So you think the Gesellschaft just encourages the use for authenticity?
SCHNEIDER: Yes, they want to stay to the right thing. I mean they want to tell what's the truth.
Difference from Tyrolean Songs [13:50]
I could show you some authentic thing, that it wouldn't be there, you could always say ‘was it really here?,’ and who wrote it and so on, but he really wrote it down, Franz Xaver Gruber. Mohr died in 1848, and that [letter proving Silent Night’s origins] was written in 1853.
So, on demand from the Prussian king, Friedrich IV, who wanted to know. Because in the little leaflet which Mr. Friese from Leipzig printed,it said ‘composer unknown.’ And Friedrich said, “I want to know it.”
Maltz and Schneider talking about area history
It sounds different to the Tyrolean songs, and it could be from Michael Haydn, because he was at that time in Munich. And that's why he asked the master from the orchestra, “Please get in contact with the abbey there, St. Peter in Salzburg.” He inquired there, and they didn't even know, they couldn't answer it straight away.
But, Gruber’s son was there in the choir, and he heard about their questioning and went back to his dad. They asked his dad to come in and said, “Please could you write it all down?”
He got even a thank you from the Prussian king, thanking him for that letter. And the Prior from the monastery was so clever, because he said write it a second time — because they didn't get the first one back, of course. And, so he wrote it a second time and that's really what's left in the Salzburg Museum and that's important.
MALTZ: You hit on something that I think is important. You said somebody said, “Well, in trying to authenticate this that it doesn't really sound like the Tyrolean songs.”
SCHNEIDER: It was different and Mauracher, who was here for the organ,, took it there.
And he was such a famous organ builder that he didn't just put it in his pocket. I'm sure he asked Gruber and Mohr if he could take it. And then, one year later, it was sung for Christmas mass. It was sung in Fügen in Tyrol.
There's a good museum there as well in Fügen in Tyrol showing a few things and mainly also “Silent Night” written down in African dialects. It's a really good story: I had a group here from Sri Lanka last year, and they happened to be there as well, and they were so glad to see it in Tamil, the old language in Sri Lanka. They saw the language that hung there.
There were really glad to see it there, but they said it was hanging upside down! [Laughter] But nobody knows in Zillertal, of course. But they were really glad. It was such a surprise to find it there.
How “Silent Night” Spread Across the World [16:04]
MALTZ: Let's discuss how Silent Night eventually became a worldwide sensation. How did Silent Night spread from a small Austrian village to international renown?
SCHNEIDER: We have to start again with that organ builder, Karl Mauracher, who took it to Tyrol.
The region where nowadays in Zillertal, was sort of cut off 200 years ago. But in wintertime they went to markets trying to sell all their knitting and leather gloves and so some people, like the Strasser family, went even up to Leipzig! It's 500km away from Zillertal.
They sang in markets and had their children with them. They noticed when they sang songs – especially the Zillertal and Tyrolean songs – they got more attraction, and people came to their places and bought their things which they sold there.
Bing Crosby, whose version of “Silent Night” is one of the top-selling singles of all time. Image via Wikipedia.
And the other one was the Rainer family. They did it over two generations. They made a business out of it. They got so well known that they were invited from the Duchess of Kent over to England and they sang there. The second generation even went to America.
There was the spreading from those families and then there were the missionaries, of course. They went to Africa and to all those places where missionaries go to and that was spreading, as well.
And then through Americans. Like you said, Bing Crosby in the 1930s.
But, there was another happening. It was in 1965, there were about 200 items of culture and art that were exhibited at a university – I don't know which university in Dallas – including Mohr's guitar and the autographed score.
Of this exhibition, Bing Crosby again went with the guitar to Hollywood to present the story to a huge audience – about 40 million TV viewers were there. That's big publicity of course.
MALTZ: And the rest is history.
SCHNEIDER: Exactly.
How the Story Ends for Mohr and Gruber [18:24]
MALTZ: Franz Xaver Gruber went on to have a successful musical career. He died at 75 and relatively wealthy.
Joseph Mohr eventually became a vicar and died at 55. His guitar played at the debut of “Silent Night” passed on to the Gruber family, and it was donated to the Silent Night Museum in Hallein.
Suggested Resources to Learn More [18:45]
MALTZ: The Church of Saint Nicholas where “Silent Night” debuted no longer stands because of catastrophic floods in the early 20th century. But, the Silent Night Chapel was built between 1930-36, and the original furnishings remain.
Visit. It captures the magic of the history and impact of “Silent Night.”