Silent Night
There are Christmas songs that announce themselves with trumpets, choirs and celebration. Silent Night does almost the opposite. It quietens the room.
Joseph Mohr wrote the German poem in 1816. Two years later, on Christmas Eve 1818, he brought it to Franz Xaver Gruber, who composed the melody. That evening it was sung at St. Nicholas Church in Oberndorf with guitar accompaniment. A much-loved story says a broken organ explains the guitar; the evidence for that detail is uncertain. What we know is simpler: two men in a small Austrian community gave their congregation a new song, and it travelled around the world.
Its power is in its simplicity. The melody rises and settles gently, allowing the Nativity to be contemplated rather than dramatized. In a season of preparation, shopping, cooking, travelling, concerts and celebration, Silent Night creates a pause.
Christmas was never particularly quiet in our childhood. There was too much happening — family, church, music, food, visiting and the excitement gathering as Christmas approached. Yet Silent Night, along with Away in a Manger, more than held its own at school concerts and in church. Long before we knew anything about Mohr or Gruber, we knew how it felt: for a few minutes, the excitement gave way to contemplation.
Christmas needs its exuberance. But perhaps it also needs a moment when everything becomes quiet enough for us to remember what the celebration is about. Some Christmas songs make us celebrate. Silent Night reminds us to be still.
LISTEN FOR: The unhurried rise and settling of the melody — and the way a large congregation can somehow sound intimate when everyone agrees to sing softly.