December 13, 2024 • 9 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, from its humble beginnings in an Austrian chapel in 1818, 'Silent Night' has become one of the most popular Christmas hymns ever. Here’s the History Guy with the story of the song.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
This is our American Stories. Our next story comes to
us from a man who's simply known as the History Guy.
His videos are watched by hundreds of thousands of people
of all ages on YouTube. The History Guy has also
heard here at Our American Stories. From its humble beginnings
at an Austrian chapel in eighteen eighteen, Silent Night has
(00:41):
become one of the most popular Christmas hymns in the world.
Here's the History Guy with the story of Silent Night.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Josephus Franciscus Moore was born in the prince archbishop Brook
of Salisbury December eleventh of seventeen ninety two, the son
of an embroiderer and a mercenary soldier who abandoned the
family before Joseph was born. Born into poverty, a vicar
at Salzburg Cathedral sow to his education and encouraged him
in music, where he became a singer and a violinist.
(01:11):
In eighteen eleven, Joseph joined the seminary, and in eighteen
fifteen he was ordained a Roman Catholic priest. In eighteen sixteen,
he was serving as assistant priest in the small town
of mariafar south of Salzburg, where he penned a short
six stanzi poem. There is no record of him ever
explaining what inspired that poem exactly, but it might have
(01:31):
been the beautiful still countryside around mountainous Mariapar and the
fourth stands that might have been referring to the difficult
period of the Napoleonic Wars. In eighteen eighteen. Two years later,
that poem was set to music and played at midnight
Mass on Christmas in the church of Saint Nicholas in
the small town of Oberndorf north of Salzburg. Today, that
(01:52):
song is one of the world's most popular songs. It
has been translated into hundreds of languages. It is sung
by millions of people. Just one recording of that song
has sold more than thirty million copies and is the
third highest selling musical single in history. The musical streaming
service Spotify has more than twenty six thousand versions of
that song. The story of this poem, written by a
(02:15):
humble priest, that began in German Still Knocked, heleg Knocked,
Silent Night, Holy Night, is one shrouded in legend and
largely unknown to the millions of people who enjoy the
world's most popular Christmas carol. There are records of Christmas
hymns sung in Latin in fourth century Rome, and the
(02:37):
practice itself may predate Christianity, being adapted from Pigan traditions,
but these early songs weren't popular with the public, and
in the early Church, Christmas was a minor holiday. The
regular singing of Christmas hymns at Christmas midnight Mass is
often credited to Saint Francis of Assisi in the thirteenth century.
In Francis's insistence that the songs be sung in native
languages rather than Latin helped to popularize the tradition. The
(03:01):
period of the life of Father Moore had been one
of almost constant conflict in Europe. Salzburg had been occupied
by the French during the War of the Second Coalition,
the last of the French Revolutionary Wars. In eighteen oh five,
the former prince bishopric was split between the Austrian Empire
and Bavaria in the Treaty of Presburg during the Napoleonic Wars,
Then in eighteen oh nine, Salzburg was ceded to Bavaria
(03:23):
after Napoleon Bonapart defeated Archduke Charles of Austria in the
Battle of Bagram, ending the War of the Fifth Coalition.
The territory was again divided between Austria and Bavaria in
the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Napoleonic Wars. It
is in this context that the fifth stance of his
poem finds its meaning. Long we hoped that he might
(03:43):
as our Lord, freest of wrath, since times of our
fathers he hath promised to spare all mankind. In eighteen seventeen,
Father Moore became an assistant priest in the town of Oberndorf,
eleven miles north of Salzburg. On Christmas Eve eighteen eighteen
or more, visited his friend Franz Zavier Gruber, who was
the church choir master and organist. In addition to being
(04:06):
the choir master for the church in Oberndorf, Franz Gruber
was a teacher and the church caretaker and organist for
the town of Arnsdorf, about three miles away. Gruber was
a composer, and Moore hoped that he could write music
to accompany the poem he had written two years earlier,
so that he could sing it at Christmas Mass. Just
a few hours away, Gruber composed the melody in just
a few hours. Gruber and Moore first sang the song
(04:29):
Still Knocked in the appropriately named Saint Nicholas Church in
Oberendorf for midnight Mass Christmas of eighteen eighteen. For accompaniment,
Moore played the guitar and the choir repeated the last
two stanzas of each verse. There has long been a
legend that the church organ was broken. Some say because
of rust, and others say because of a damage done
by a hungry mouse. But the fact is there is
(04:51):
no actual record that the organ was broken, and neither
More nor Gruber ever explained why the melody was accompanied
by guitar and not the organ. It might be that
Father More simply enjoyed the guitar. By the eighteen thirties,
it had become a popular folk song throughout Austria and
was popularly sung by two families of folk singers, the
(05:11):
Strausser family and the Rainer family, who became the first
to sing the song in the United States in New
York in eighteen thirty nine. It was published in a
compendium of Taurolean folk Songs in the eighteen thirties, and
by the eighteen forties, the song had been popularized by
the Royal Cathedral Choir in Berlin and was a favorite
song of King Frederick William the fourth of Prussia. In
(05:33):
eighteen fifty nine, an episcopal priest in New York City
translated the song into English. While the lyrics were not
an exact translation, they preserved the spirit of the song.
It was then carried by Christian missionaries worldwide. In one
of the more extraordinary moments in history, German soldiers began
singing Steely Knocked from the trenches on Christmas Eve of
nineteen fourteen. The song was very popular in Germany but
(05:56):
still not well known in Britain, and it was the
first time that many British soldiers listening from there nearby
trenches had heard the tube. The British soldiers responded with
a carol of their own, and that started the extraordinary
event called the Christmas Truce. While the circumstances of the
Christmas Truce during the First World War in nineteen fourteen
(06:16):
have sometimes been overstated, as many as one hundred thousand
soldiers were thought to have taken part in the brief
moment of fellowship and rebellion against authority, laying down their arms,
shaking hands with their enemy, and exchanging gifts. Some soldiers
used the opportunity to retrieve the bodies of the fallen
that had been abandoned in no man's land. Bing Crosby
(06:37):
released the song as a single in nineteen thirty five.
Since then, that single has sold more than thirty million copies,
making it the third highest selling single of all time,
behind Elton John's Candle in the Wind. In Crosby's own
White Christmas. A devout Catholic, Crosby thought that it would
be wrong to profit from a religious song. All the
royalties from the third best selling song in history have
(06:58):
gone to charity. Have been produced by vocalist's diverses Elvis Presley,
Gene Autry, and Justin Bieber. In twenty ten, music licensing
company PPL determined that Silent Knight was Britain's most recorded
Christmas song of all time. A similar analysis by Time
magazine in twenty fourteen of all Christmas albums recorded in
the United States since nineteen seventy eight determined that Silent
(07:20):
Night was America's most popular Christmas recording, with seven hundred
and thirty three copyrighted recordings since nineteen seventy eight. If
you listened to a different one of the more than
twenty six thousand versions of the song on Spotify every night,
you go more than seventy nine years before having to
repeat a version. The song was published for decades without
(07:42):
providing any credit. For many years, people thought that it
was a composition of either Beethoven or Bach. Even when
Franz Gruber was finally recognized for providing the melody, the
contribution of Yosef Moore of the lyrics was forgotten. The
question was finally settled in nineteen ninety four when an
original cop in Joseph Moore's hand and including the original
(08:03):
score for guitar and dated eighteen twenty, was finally authenticated.
Father Moore served in many parishes and all his life
donated most of his salary to charity. The man who
wrote one of the world's most popular songs died of popper,
leaving nothing behind but a ragged cassock in a lifetime
of good works. Franz Guber wrote several different variations on
(08:26):
the melody and donated all of the proceeds to charity.
He was recognized as a composer for composing more than
ninety songs, but still a not was by far his
most popular. The Church of Saint Nicholas had to be
demolished as the entire town of Oberendorf was moved upstream
due to repeated flooding, but there is a small chapel
on the site of the original church that is dedicated
(08:47):
to the song Silent Night, and next to it as
a museum that commemorates the lives of Father Moore, on
Franz Gruber and local history. Franz Gruber's home in the
Austrian town of Halleine has been preserved as a museum
and included in its displays is Joseph Moore's guitar, used
to play the song for the first time in eighteen eighteen,
(09:07):
and it is still the song's humble origins that are
perhaps the most compelling part of the story of the
world's most popular Christmas Carol. I'm the history guy, wishing
you and yours a very merry Christmas.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
And great job as always to Greg Hengler, and a
special thanks to the history Guy for all that he
does for everybody telling these stories about life as it was,
and my goodness, what contours I mean. The man who
writes the song is a priest who dies with nothing.
Everyone associated with this song just couldn't take the earnings
(09:42):
bing Crosby didn't. A devout Catholic, he donated them away.
The composer couldn't. He donated them away. When you're around
something sacred, no matter what your beliefs, sometimes it's hard
to make a dollar. The story of Silent Night on
Our American Stories
This is our American Stories. Our next story comes to
us from a man who's simply known as the History Guy.
His videos are watched by hundreds of thousands of people
of all ages on YouTube. The History Guy has also
heard here at Our American Stories. From its humble beginnings
at an Austrian chapel in eighteen eighteen, Silent Night has
(00:41):
become one of the most popular Christmas hymns in the world.
Here's the History Guy with the story of Silent Night.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Josephus Franciscus Moore was born in the prince archbishop Brook
of Salisbury December eleventh of seventeen ninety two, the son
of an embroiderer and a mercenary soldier who abandoned the
family before Joseph was born. Born into poverty, a vicar
at Salzburg Cathedral sow to his education and encouraged him
in music, where he became a singer and a violinist.
(01:11):
In eighteen eleven, Joseph joined the seminary, and in eighteen
fifteen he was ordained a Roman Catholic priest. In eighteen sixteen,
he was serving as assistant priest in the small town
of mariafar south of Salzburg, where he penned a short
six stanzi poem. There is no record of him ever
explaining what inspired that poem exactly, but it might have
(01:31):
been the beautiful still countryside around mountainous Mariapar and the
fourth stands that might have been referring to the difficult
period of the Napoleonic Wars. In eighteen eighteen. Two years later,
that poem was set to music and played at midnight
Mass on Christmas in the church of Saint Nicholas in
the small town of Oberndorf north of Salzburg. Today, that
(01:52):
song is one of the world's most popular songs. It
has been translated into hundreds of languages. It is sung
by millions of people. Just one recording of that song
has sold more than thirty million copies and is the
third highest selling musical single in history. The musical streaming
service Spotify has more than twenty six thousand versions of
that song. The story of this poem, written by a
(02:15):
humble priest, that began in German Still Knocked, heleg Knocked,
Silent Night, Holy Night, is one shrouded in legend and
largely unknown to the millions of people who enjoy the
world's most popular Christmas carol. There are records of Christmas
hymns sung in Latin in fourth century Rome, and the
(02:37):
practice itself may predate Christianity, being adapted from Pigan traditions,
but these early songs weren't popular with the public, and
in the early Church, Christmas was a minor holiday. The
regular singing of Christmas hymns at Christmas midnight Mass is
often credited to Saint Francis of Assisi in the thirteenth century.
In Francis's insistence that the songs be sung in native
languages rather than Latin helped to popularize the tradition. The
(03:01):
period of the life of Father Moore had been one
of almost constant conflict in Europe. Salzburg had been occupied
by the French during the War of the Second Coalition,
the last of the French Revolutionary Wars. In eighteen oh five,
the former prince bishopric was split between the Austrian Empire
and Bavaria in the Treaty of Presburg during the Napoleonic Wars,
Then in eighteen oh nine, Salzburg was ceded to Bavaria
(03:23):
after Napoleon Bonapart defeated Archduke Charles of Austria in the
Battle of Bagram, ending the War of the Fifth Coalition.
The territory was again divided between Austria and Bavaria in
the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Napoleonic Wars. It
is in this context that the fifth stance of his
poem finds its meaning. Long we hoped that he might
(03:43):
as our Lord, freest of wrath, since times of our
fathers he hath promised to spare all mankind. In eighteen seventeen,
Father Moore became an assistant priest in the town of Oberndorf,
eleven miles north of Salzburg. On Christmas Eve eighteen eighteen
or more, visited his friend Franz Zavier Gruber, who was
the church choir master and organist. In addition to being
(04:06):
the choir master for the church in Oberndorf, Franz Gruber
was a teacher and the church caretaker and organist for
the town of Arnsdorf, about three miles away. Gruber was
a composer, and Moore hoped that he could write music
to accompany the poem he had written two years earlier,
so that he could sing it at Christmas Mass. Just
a few hours away, Gruber composed the melody in just
a few hours. Gruber and Moore first sang the song
(04:29):
Still Knocked in the appropriately named Saint Nicholas Church in
Oberendorf for midnight Mass Christmas of eighteen eighteen. For accompaniment,
Moore played the guitar and the choir repeated the last
two stanzas of each verse. There has long been a
legend that the church organ was broken. Some say because
of rust, and others say because of a damage done
by a hungry mouse. But the fact is there is
(04:51):
no actual record that the organ was broken, and neither
More nor Gruber ever explained why the melody was accompanied
by guitar and not the organ. It might be that
Father More simply enjoyed the guitar. By the eighteen thirties,
it had become a popular folk song throughout Austria and
was popularly sung by two families of folk singers, the
(05:11):
Strausser family and the Rainer family, who became the first
to sing the song in the United States in New
York in eighteen thirty nine. It was published in a
compendium of Taurolean folk Songs in the eighteen thirties, and
by the eighteen forties, the song had been popularized by
the Royal Cathedral Choir in Berlin and was a favorite
song of King Frederick William the fourth of Prussia. In
(05:33):
eighteen fifty nine, an episcopal priest in New York City
translated the song into English. While the lyrics were not
an exact translation, they preserved the spirit of the song.
It was then carried by Christian missionaries worldwide. In one
of the more extraordinary moments in history, German soldiers began
singing Steely Knocked from the trenches on Christmas Eve of
nineteen fourteen. The song was very popular in Germany but
(05:56):
still not well known in Britain, and it was the
first time that many British soldiers listening from there nearby
trenches had heard the tube. The British soldiers responded with
a carol of their own, and that started the extraordinary
event called the Christmas Truce. While the circumstances of the
Christmas Truce during the First World War in nineteen fourteen
(06:16):
have sometimes been overstated, as many as one hundred thousand
soldiers were thought to have taken part in the brief
moment of fellowship and rebellion against authority, laying down their arms,
shaking hands with their enemy, and exchanging gifts. Some soldiers
used the opportunity to retrieve the bodies of the fallen
that had been abandoned in no man's land. Bing Crosby
(06:37):
released the song as a single in nineteen thirty five.
Since then, that single has sold more than thirty million copies,
making it the third highest selling single of all time,
behind Elton John's Candle in the Wind. In Crosby's own
White Christmas. A devout Catholic, Crosby thought that it would
be wrong to profit from a religious song. All the
royalties from the third best selling song in history have
(06:58):
gone to charity. Have been produced by vocalist's diverses Elvis Presley,
Gene Autry, and Justin Bieber. In twenty ten, music licensing
company PPL determined that Silent Knight was Britain's most recorded
Christmas song of all time. A similar analysis by Time
magazine in twenty fourteen of all Christmas albums recorded in
the United States since nineteen seventy eight determined that Silent
(07:20):
Night was America's most popular Christmas recording, with seven hundred
and thirty three copyrighted recordings since nineteen seventy eight. If
you listened to a different one of the more than
twenty six thousand versions of the song on Spotify every night,
you go more than seventy nine years before having to
repeat a version. The song was published for decades without
(07:42):
providing any credit. For many years, people thought that it
was a composition of either Beethoven or Bach. Even when
Franz Gruber was finally recognized for providing the melody, the
contribution of Yosef Moore of the lyrics was forgotten. The
question was finally settled in nineteen ninety four when an
original cop in Joseph Moore's hand and including the original
(08:03):
score for guitar and dated eighteen twenty, was finally authenticated.
Father Moore served in many parishes and all his life
donated most of his salary to charity. The man who
wrote one of the world's most popular songs died of popper,
leaving nothing behind but a ragged cassock in a lifetime
of good works. Franz Guber wrote several different variations on
(08:26):
the melody and donated all of the proceeds to charity.
He was recognized as a composer for composing more than
ninety songs, but still a not was by far his
most popular. The Church of Saint Nicholas had to be
demolished as the entire town of Oberendorf was moved upstream
due to repeated flooding, but there is a small chapel
on the site of the original church that is dedicated
(08:47):
to the song Silent Night, and next to it as
a museum that commemorates the lives of Father Moore, on
Franz Gruber and local history. Franz Gruber's home in the
Austrian town of Halleine has been preserved as a museum
and included in its displays is Joseph Moore's guitar, used
to play the song for the first time in eighteen eighteen,
(09:07):
and it is still the song's humble origins that are
perhaps the most compelling part of the story of the
world's most popular Christmas Carol. I'm the history guy, wishing
you and yours a very merry Christmas.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
And great job as always to Greg Hengler, and a
special thanks to the history Guy for all that he
does for everybody telling these stories about life as it was,
and my goodness, what contours I mean. The man who
writes the song is a priest who dies with nothing.
Everyone associated with this song just couldn't take the earnings
(09:42):
bing Crosby didn't. A devout Catholic, he donated them away.
The composer couldn't. He donated them away. When you're around
something sacred, no matter what your beliefs, sometimes it's hard
to make a dollar. The story of Silent Night on
Our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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