Carol of the serene night

CECILIA THOMAS

Late one Christmas eve many years ago, I was lighting the Christmas lanterns near the Crib, when I saw two children at the gate, a boy and a girl. That evening was one of Bangalore's coldest I remember, and the two were muffled up to their ears in tattered bits of clothing.

As I walked to the gate to see what had brought them, they burst into song. The carol they sang for me was Silent Night. They were not sure of the words, but the tune was right - sung in a high childish treble.

Silent Night is one of the loveliest carols that was ever composed. The tune is haunting, and the words are beautifully descriptive, meditative, almost like a prayer. It is interesting to recall how this carol was composed.

This is the story. A Church in the village of Oberndorf in Austria had just got a new parish priest, Joseph Mohr. The time was Christmas, and Fr. Joseph Mohr was asked to lead the Christmas Eve service. Fr. Mohr was worried because, he had just 24 hours to prepare for the service, and he had no Christmas music to help him. What was worse, the church organ would not play. The moisture from the Salzach river, had rusted the organ pipes. Well - no organ meant no music. What was he to do?. Could be compose some music himself? he wondered. Well, he could try.

Fr Mohr climbed the mountain overlooking the town, and soaked in the beauty and quiet of the darkness. And while he meditated there, the words of a new carol began to take shape in his mind and in his heart. It was nearly midnight when he at last returned to his room. And there in the small hours of December 24, 1818, he wrote the carol he had composed on the mountain. The peace and quiet of the night of Oberndorf was fresh in his mind. But it was Bethlehem he was seeing in his mind's eye. Bethlehem, quiet and still and bathed in the radiance of that holy night.

Still Nacht, Hellige Nacht, he wrote. The words were flowing now. He could see in his mind's eye, the Virgin, the Child, the shepherds quaking, as they gazed wonderstruck at the glories streaming from heaven.

Silent Night, holy night.

All is calm, all is bright.

The next morning he took what he had written to the church organist, Franz Gruber. "I know it's rather late," he must have said, "but could you put to music this song for the service tonight?"

Gruber set to work at once, and in a couple of hours he had composed the music, just in time to rehearse with the choir before the service. Fr. Mohr sang tenor, Gruber sang bass. Fr. Mohr also accompanied the choir on his guitar. History was made. The very first time in the world that Silent Night was performed, it was on a guitar and not on a church organ.

The beautiful carol was soon to spread its wings and fly out of the little town of Oberndorf. It spread first to all parts of Europe and then to the entire world. It is said that an organ repairman came to Oberndorf to repair the rusted organ, and there he heard about the carol. He listened to it and liked it. So he copied the song and took it with him. Perhaps he sang it as he worked on organs in the neighbouring villages, and people learned the tune and the words by just listening to him. The story goes that two families of travelling folk singers eventually came to hear the song. They began to sing it in concerts all over Europe. In 1834 one of these families, the Strassers, performed it for the King of Prussia. He liked it so much that he ordered it to be sung every Christmas Eve by his cathedral choir. The Rainer family singers brought the carol to America in 1839. By the middle of the 19th century the carol had become popular around the world - but no one knew anything about its composer.

It took many years for the story of the carol's fame to reach back to the place of its origin - the tiny village of Oberndorf in Austria. Sadly enough, by that time, Fr Mohr had passed away. He had died of pneumonia in 1848. But Franz Gruber acted at once. He wrote to all the leading musical authorities everywhere, informing them that he was the composer of the tune. Fortunately for him and for posterity, he still had the original manuscript to show. Eventually he was recognised as the composer of the tune of the beautiful and famous carol.

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