'Silent Night' goes global
According to a document written by Gruber in 1854, the song first became popular in the nearby Zillertal valley. From there, two traveling families of folk singers, the Strassers and the Rainers, included the tune in their shows.
When was the original Silent Night written?
It's a song about a calm and bright silent night, and the wonder of a tender and mild newborn child, words written in 1816 by a young priest in Austria, Joseph Mohr, not long after the Napoleonic wars had taken their toll.
Why was Silent Night written?
The Austrian priest Joseph Mohr was in desperate need of music for the midnight mass because his church's organ was broken. So, he penned these lyrics and brought them to the organist Franz Gruber, who composed a simple melody for a guitar accompaniment.
