Christmas Hymns

Realizing that traditional Christmas carols could not be properly played on a guitar, Joseph Mohr decided to write a new hymn.

Kompas/Didie SW

.

Ahead of Christmas in 1818, 22-year-old cleric Joseph Mohr discovered significant damage to the Church of St. Nicholas’ pipe organ. The small house of worship is located in Oberndorf, a village near Salzburg in Austria.

Mohr was perplexed. Even if repairmen could fix the pipe organ, the Christmas mass would be finished by the time they arrived at the church given the snowy conditions. For the young cleric, a Christmas without musical hymns would not be Christmas. However, he had musical talent.

Mohr hailed from a poor family, but he refused to surrender to his fate. He used his talents and tried to earn money by singing, playing the violin and guitar on the street and held traveling performances. His hard work and talent attracted the attention of a cleric, who suggested that he enroll in a seminary.

He was eventually ordained as a priest in 1815 and was sent to minister in Oberndorf in 1817. There, he did so much more than just lead weekly masses in line with religious regulations. He amazed many in his congregation by his guitar skills and how he switched effortlessly from playing folk music to religious hymns.

Historic hymns

Upon facing the problem of the broken pipe organ, Mohr locked himself in his study. Realizing that traditional Christmas carols could not be properly played on a guitar, he decided to write a new hymn.

While working with a piece of paper and a quill, he was reminded of a family of churchgoers that he had recently visited in their home to bless their newborn baby. His memory of watching the mother covering the baby with a blanket to protect it from the cold brought Mohr’s memory to a certain birth 2,000 years before – that of Christ, the savior of all mankind.

He started writing. His quill moved as if it was guided by an unseen hand. A deeply moving chorus appeared on the paper: “Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht”, “silent night, holy night”. He wrote about the Christmas miracle in six stanzas. His words flowed smoothly as if it was an inspiration directly from the heavens.

Time was pressing. He had finished his poem but he still needed to turn it into a hymn to be sung at the midnight mass. Mohr decided to visit his close friend Franz Xavier Gruber, 31, a schoolteacher living near Arnsdorf and a better composer than he.

Despite there being no time even for simple rehearsals, Mohr and Gruber agreed to perform the hymn together. Mohr would play the guitar and sing tenor while Gruber would sing bass. After each of the stanzas, the church choir would sing the chorus.

At midnight, amid a heavy snowfall, people began to arrive at the church. They thought the pipe organ was fixed for the Christmas carols – a long-held tradition at the village. However, Mohr explained that the pipe organ was still broken. Nevertheless, the midnight mass would still go on and there would still be music. He and Gruber had prepared a special Christmas carol for everyone.

Together to the sound of the guitar, the singing voices reverberated through the church. The church choir sang all the choruses harmoniously. The churchgoers solemnly listened to the hymn and were astonished to hear that the new hymn was as pure and refreshing as the water from the Alps. Eventually, Mohr started the mass and the congregation knelt in prayer. The Christmas mass at the Church of St Nicholas ended satisfyingly just as usual. It was an unforgettable success that was widely spread through word of mouth. They agreed that it was more than simply a new carol.

Died in misery

It was a Tyrol singing group that regularly performed on stages across Europe that added “Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht” to its repertoire. The new Christmas carol echoed across the Atlantic and charmed the Americas. It echoed through the Indian Ocean and swept everyone all over the world off their feet. The carol is now found in local languages – Swahili, Japanese, Russian, Korean, Chinese and Indonesian. The solemn hymn has brought peace and joy to everyone. Many famous singers have sung the song.

Mohr had never thought that his Christmas carol would reach into the hearts of all people in all corners of the world. He died in misery of pneumonia at the age of 55. When Gruber died in 1863, the song was probably not copyrighted.

Slowly, the simple Christmas carol grew in its power to create true peace. During a truce in World War I, as German soldiers in their trenches sang “Stille Nacht”, the British soldiers across no-man’s land greeted the song with “Silent Night” from their trenches. Words were shared and mutual feelings were established. Members of the opposing forces then began to emerge from their hiding, one by one, waving their hands to one another.

In another war, at a prison camp in Siberia, as German, Austrian and Hungarian soldiers sang the chorus of “Silent Night”, the Russian commander told his prisoners in broken German that “Tonight, for the first time in more than a year, I can forget that you and I are seen as enemies.”

As Czechoslovakia fell under Nazi Germany in 1941, a German soldier visited an orphanage and asked where he could find children able to sing “Stille Nacht”. Two children hesitantly came forward, as most people who spoke German in the country were Jewish. Seeing the hesitation, the soldier said, “Don’t be afraid, sing!”

One time, ahead of Christmas during the Korean war, an American soldier heard approaching footsteps from behind enemy lines. As he was prepared to shoot, he saw a smiling group of Koreans emerging from the dark of the night. As the American soldier was confused, the Koreans began to sing “Silent Night” in Korean just for him, an American. Afterward, they retreated into the dark.

KOMPAS/ARBAIN RAMBEY

Daoed Joesoef

The serenity created by the synergy of powerful lyrics and Christmas melody has reached deep into hearts, similar to the calmness the world felt when a cleric and a schoolteacher sang the Christmas carol for the first time, 193 years ago.

Silent night, holy night. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

(Material for this piece were obtained from various authentic sources, including Per Ola and Emily d’Aulaire).

DAOED JOESOEF

Alumni of University Pluridisciplinaires Pantheon-Sorbonne