The Story of Silent Night

by Paul Gallico

  When one thinks of the amount of music that was “made” throughout the German and Austro-Hungarian states in those times in the great cities such as Frankfurt, Dresden, Leipzig, Budapest, Vienna, Cologne, Mannheim and Berlin, it is astonishing that only the giants such as Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann and Chopin survived. Music-makers by the thousand flourished. Yet they were insignificant and their works are either nonexistent or unremembered. How much more hopeless of immortality then was the unassuming organist who sat at the console of the parish crossroads church.

  For Mohr and Gruber, music was a mutual language. They probably played four-handed Bach and Handel on the organ, or duets on their “Zupfgeigen” or “pluck-violins”, as guitars were known in their times.

  Nor was composition a great mystery. Mohr handing Gruber his lyric and expecting a setting back that same Christmas Eve would have surprised neither. For one of the aptitudes of any competent musician was improvisation. He could sit down at the pianoforte, harpsichord or organ without notes and play whatever melodies or harmonies came into his mind. Down through the years Gruber would have whiled away hour after hour alone in the church, simply letting his fingers wander over the keyboard and allowing the music to flow.

  At Arnsdorf there is yet another onion-domed church, the Wallfahrtskirche Maria, where Gruber performed his various duties as sexton. The Volksschule stands in its shadow. Here he both taught and lived. He entered the door and was hardly aware of walking through the empty classroom, garlanded for Christmas, past its painted desks and the green tiled porcelain stove at the far end with its curious ceramic-studded, clay hemisphere at the top. There was not a soul about, for the children were already on holiday.

  He climbed the wooden staircase to his spare and simple study with its well-scrubbed deal floor, the stove, a desk and a few pieces of hand-painted furniture, as well as the ubiquitous carved figure of the crucified Christ on the wall.

  His guitar hung from a peg too, but he did not take it down. He went instead to his spinet which occupied the most prominent place in the room, and without removing his overcoat sat down at it and re-read the poem of Joseph Mohr, born Joseph Nobody.

  He said it to himself out loud:

  “Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!

  Alles schläft; einsam wacht.

  Nur das traute heilige Paar.

  Holder Knabe im lockigten Haar,

  Schlafe in himmlischer Ruh.

  “Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!

  Gottes Sohn, o wie lacht

  Lieb’ aus Deinem gottlichen Mund

  Da uns schlägt die rettende Stund,

  Jesus in Deiner Geburt.

  “Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!

  Hirten erst kundgemacht

  Durch der Engel Alleluja

  Tönt es laut bei fern und nah:

  Jesus der Retter ist da!”

  What gripped him was the simplicity of its narration of the story told and retold every Christmas Eve of that starlit night in Palestine when all Bethlehem was asleep, and only the Holy pair Joseph and Mary kept lonely watch on their Newborn in the manger. Mary sang to Him as mothers always have—“My darling, my curly-headed boy; sleep in heavenly peace.”

  Yet he could not linger too long. Gruber tried to collect his musical thoughts and sounds he had been hearing ever since he first read the verses, but he was still in too much of a state of agitation. He touched several chords on his instrument, played half a melody and ceased in irritation as a loud peal of bells from the tower of the neighbouring church broke in upon his reflections.

  He arose and went to the window to look out upon the snow, the stone crucifix outlined in white rising from the churchyard and down the village street some children pelting one another with snowballs. As if in echo to the peal now ended, borne upon the winter wind Gruber heard the bells of the Church of St. Nikola in Oberndorf, but rendered soft and gentle by distance. In place of the unrelated jangle of clapper upon bronze they seemed to convey a rhythm that was peaceful and soothing.

  Three mummers in the guise of the Three Kings passed by below, but Gruber did not even see them, for lost in meditation he was gazing across the whitened, flat lands with prosperous farms and fat, peak-roofed houses. Smoke drifted upwards from a chimney, a few desultory snowflakes fell from the sky and his lips framed the words, “Schlafe in himmlischer Ruh”—“Sleep in heavenly peace”.

  No more than a dozen years before fires from burning homes and hayricks had illuminated the night, gravestones had sprung up over the countryside like weeds as the armies of Napoleon ravaged the land. The French had fought the Austrians and when the invaders had gone, the Austrians had made war upon the Germans.

  But that, too, had come to an end and one could sleep now, child and man, in heavenly peace. Once more he heard the faint strains of the bells of St. Nikola. He knew so well the tone of each one, their sequence and their rhythms. Yet now, blending in with his reverie and feelings, they seemed to hold the suggestion of a melody. And as he turned from the window to the spinet on which lay Mohr’s poem, it was as though he saw clearly for the first time. He discarded all the grandiose musical ideas he had been fermenting and murmured:

  “How stupid of me! What pompous thoughts I have been having. Why, it’s only a lullaby— Sleep my child and rest; I am watching over you this silent and peaceful night—the kind of song to which cradles have been rocked and restless infants quietened to sleep for centuries.”

  He had found the key now to the composition, the simplicity needed to match the words. No complicated harmonies or exalted effects were called for but only the unadorned melodic line to bring to the minds of the listeners something of the mood of that December eve in Bethlehem in the long ago.

  Soon a sheet of paper was covered with a rough score. Gruber played the notes and sang them to himself, then took his guitar from the wall and transcribed the accompaniment. It was all done swiftly and easily since what musician worthy of the name was not capable of putting together a plain, homespun, cradle song? Gathering up his papers and slinging his guitar over his shoulder, Gruber set forth on the return journey to Oberndorf, hoping that Mohr would think he had done the right thing with his unpretentious setting to the poem.

  “What, back so soon, Franz?” Mohr said, amazed, for noon had hardly struck and the priest was just about to sit down to his lunch. He invited Gruber to join him and, over a bowl of hot soup, the two men studied the notes, Mohr nodding and humming. Gruber was as modest about his music as his friend had been about the words.

  “You will see how it struck me,” he said. “Perhaps I haven’t done justice to your poetry, but we will try it out when we have finished eating and see whether you like it.”

  “No, no,” Mohr assured him hastily, “you have surprised me. Your melody is far superior. After all, my idea was only to help us over our difficulties . . .”

  An hour or so later, the two men were contemplating one another and the hastily written score with the satisfaction that comes to creators of any calibre when endeavour has managed to work out fairly smoothly. The blending of their two voices to the guitar pleased them. If the refrain chorused by the children came out as well, the music for that part of the service following the reading of the Christmas story as told by St. Luke in Chapter II, verses 1–14 of the Gospels, would be adequate. And “adequate” was how they thought of it.

  That afternoon there were collected in the priest’s study beneath the wreaths and garlands of evergreen, six little boys and six girls, scrubbed and shining in their warm woollens, jackets and pinafores. They had been selected as the most talented of the children’s choir of St. Nikola and the most likely to learn quickly, for now there was not much time left. And once more the character of the gay young priest who had summoned them became apparent when the girls appeared with red and green ribbons braided through their plaits and the boys wore them in the shape of rosettes at their stockings. Mohr had supplied streamers of the same colours to be attached
to Gruber’s guitar. The schoolteacher-composer’s thoughts must have been along the lines of: “Well, in for a penny, in for a pound,” for he only smiled and picked up his guitar which had suddenly become more Italianate than Austrian, and after he and the priest had sung a verse they rehearsed the children.

  “So now: Hannes, Evchen and Peterli, you sing like this—‘Ta-ta, ta ta-ta-ta-ta . . .’ And you, Gretel, Liesel and Johann sing—‘Da-di, da di-da-da-da . . .’ Michel, Lotte and Maria, here is your part . . .” and Gruber handed them the counterpoint. “Franzl, Sepp and Inge—yours goes just the opposite . . . First we’ll try each group singing separately. Very good. Now we will put them all together. Ready then, and remember, I want to hear the girls at the end of the first line . . . Also dann—eins, zwei, drei—”

  The voices of the children blended:

  “Schlafe in himmlischer Ruh!

  Schlafe in himmlischer Ruh!”

  The two men glanced at one another again with satisfaction. A little rough. A bit of trouble with the third bar of the repeat, but easily remedied. The silent organ and the rip in the frayed bellows were no longer important. Two journeymen workers, a minor poet and a minor musician, in a few brief hours had managed to arrange a passable substitute.

  hristmas Eve in the Austria of 1818 was very different from the holiday celebrated in the West today. It was then a serious and devout religious festival, solemnized far more in the churches even than in the homes. The family-made crèche with its carved or waxen figures of the Holy Family was more important than the Christmas tree. Prayer, reading of the Gospel and the sacred music were at the heart of the ceremony. True, there were also gifts and feasting and the children would already have been scared out of their wits by the appearance of St. Nicholas accompanied by his assistant known as the “Grampus”, who seemed to know all about their sins. But the climax was the midnight Mass.

  That night it was cold and fine. There was a crust on the snow and underfoot it was so dry that it crunched and squeaked beneath the heavy boots of the churchgoers wending their way to the service at St. Nikola. Their cheery “Grüss Gotts” as they met and joined up with one another rang through the stillness. The air was sharp and crystal clear and crackled in the nostrils. The stars seemed to hang from the sky and one of particular brightness, if you looked in just the right way, appeared to be shining as though attached to the top of the tallest pine near the church. Successive families as they passed would look up and then point it out to those who followed.

  Once more the bells pealed forth from the tall, whitewashed steeple. Within, hundreds of tapers and candles reflected from the gilded and silvered plates and chalices, the brightly painted figures of Saints and Virgins, softening the faces of the stiff, Gothic, wooden Madonnas and haloed figures, endowing them with gentle grace. Angels, cherubim and seraphim and all the Holy Ones of the Catholic Calendar of Saints were decorated with pine boughs and hollyberries.

  Ordinarily, Gruber would have been at the organ, softly playing in the congregation to the strains of old hymns. Now the worshippers were aware of the unusual silence as they entered and heard the shuffle of their own feet on the stone floor. But word had got around very quickly of the catastrophe and there was much buzz of conversation and wonderment as to what was to replace it. True, the choir might sing a cappella, but well—that wasn’t real Christmas Eve music.

  The people packed themselves close on the hard benches, the men in their sombre, lumpy best clothes, the women with gay aprons over their dark skirts, coloured shawls about their shoulders and bright scarves on their heads. The rough river men in the inland sailor’s garb of the times of red and blue, occupied the rear pews.

  The smoke of incense drifted upwards to the roof of the nave, the coughings and scrapings ceased as old Father Nostler, as solid and grim in his robes as the figures carved by peasants out of wood, began the conduct of the Mass. Where the organ should have played its part, the choir chanted from its loft, yet those in the church felt how much the music was missing. It was like meat without salt. Only a few noticed that the assistant priest, Joseph Mohr, was nowhere to be seen.

  Father Nostler read the appropriate Epistle to Titus, II and the lines from St. Luke, Chapter II, verses 1–14. From the pulpit the priest had spoken feelingly enough of the miracle of the birth that had taken place some eighteen hundred years ago, its meaning to mankind and the hopes that it had brought to all the miserable and enslaved of the world.

  When he finished, the slap made by the closing of the great Bible echoed through the silent church as though it had been a signal, as indeed it was. For this was the place where he had been told the children would appear and sing. However, he was not prepared for the surprise as Joseph Mohr, Franz Gruber and the twelve youngsters, the organist with his guitar slung from his shoulder, marched in from the vestry and ranged themselves before the altar.

  When the crusty old priest saw the manner in which all were decked out, his face was almost apoplectic and he raised his hand as though to bring proceedings to a halt. But it was too late, for Mohr had already stepped forward and was saying in effect: “You all know that through the accident to our organ, which happened only last night, we have been denied our usual music. However, Herr Gruber and I have prepared a little Christmas song which we hope will take its place.”

  There was a momentary rustle of astonishment and excitement. In the rear pews the river men grinned and nudged one another as though to say, “Good old Mohr! Trust him to come up with something.” Then as Gruber shifted his instrument into position, silence fell once more. He plucked the first chord from the strings of the guitar, and the tenor and baritone voices of the priest and the schoolteacher filled the church, harmonizing as they sang in slow tempo the sweetly lulling melody of the opening words: “Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!”

  The fresh young voices of the children picked up and twice repeated the refrain, “Schlafe in himmlischer Ruh!” the light, childish soprano of the girls first soaring to the roof beams; the second time pronouncing it as softly as a benediction. Verse followed verse; chorus after chorus and when the last line was sung: “Jesus the Saviour is here!” there was heard a long drawn out sigh and a murmur of satisfaction. There was not a member of the congregation who was not moved by the haunting notes of the refrain.

  Father Nostler was not amused. Frowning and muttering to himself and not even deigning to look at his assistant, he took over the altar to complete the rites of Communion and then, his fury unappeased at what he considered a sacrilege in content and execution, he retired to his quarters to pen yet another outraged letter to the Bishop of Salzburg.

  Gruber and Mohr, however, stationed themselves outside the door of St. Nikola’s to greet the emerging Oberndorfers. The reactions were mixed.

  The wife of a Selectman gushed, “It was a lovely service, Father, but we did miss our music, didn’t we?”

  An elderly woman, tight-lipped, remarked, “Really, Father, it seems to me that church is not the place for playing a guitar.”

  One of the sailors gave the young priest a dig in the ribs, “Not bad, but we could have done with something a bit more lively, eh?”

  A man complimented Gruber, “That was a nice melody. But haven’t I heard it before somewhere?”

  Another family stopped to say, “Thank you, Father, How pretty the children looked.”

  Gruber remained somewhat cynically amused, but on the whole pleased for the majority of the comments indicated that they had managed to get away with it. He murmured to Mohr, “So far, so good. But I don’t think old Nostler was very pleased. I hope there won’t be any trouble.”

  Mohr laughed and replied, “Oh, he’ll get over it!”

  When the last of the worshippers had dispersed behind the clouds of their own breath in the night air, Gruber wryly held out his hand to his friend and said, “Merry Christmas, Joseph!”

  The intonation was not lost upon the priest who grinned back at him impishly, “The same to you, Franzl.�
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  The two men shook hands and Gruber set off for Arnsdorf and home once more, still smiling gently beneath the muffler now wound about his face to the eyes.

  A few days later, as the townspeople began to look ahead to the coming new year and what it might hold for them, the incident and the song to which it had given rise were totally forgotten.

  he verdict of time upon manifestations of genius is unpredictable. Works by creators in every field of the arts who at some moment or other feel that they are inspired and have produced something immortal, languish rejected by critic and public alike. Trifles tossed off to pay a bill, to amuse a child or even efforts about to be discarded because they seem ordinary or unworthy often achieve imperishable fame.

  Franz Gruber was for his day a competent journeyman musician who, when he died, left behind some ninety compositions mostly of a religious nature and as modest, unpretentious and undistinguished as himself.

  Each time he sat at his spinet, clavichord or pianoforte during his life’s span, he set out to write the very best music he could. All contained some of the essence of the man, his dreams, his imagination, his hopes for survival. Yet of these major productions, but one Mass for mixed chorus and small orchestra is still occasionally heard in Germany today. During his lifetime he once rose above himself and soared like a lark upon one heavenly and never-to-be-forgotten flight. And when he put together a simple melody, he was wholly unaware that he had created anything in the least remarkable.

  On the contrary. When some thirty-six years later Gruber was asked for his account of how the song came into being, he wrote in his own hand a few cold, dry-as-dust sentences pertaining to the event:

  “It was on the 24th December of the year 1818 that the incumbent assistant priest, Father Joseph Mohr of St. Nikola’s Church in Oberndorf, handed over a poem to the organist of that church, Franz Gruber, who at the same time was also school teacher in Arnsdorf, with the request to write an accompanying melody for two solo voices, chorus with guitar accompaniment. The latter, in accordance with the appropriate request of this holy man who was himself a musician, handed over his simple composition and it was performed that Christmas Eve to general approval.”