Franz Xaver Gruber was an Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n primary school teacher and church organist in the village of Arnsdorf. At the same time he was organist and choirmaster at St Nicholas Church in the neighboring village of Oberndorf bei Salzburg

Oberndorf bei Salzburg

Oberndorf bei Salzburg is a town in the Austrian state of Salzburg, about 17 km north of the City of Salzburg. It is situated on the river Salzach in the Flachgau district.-Overview:Its twin sister-town across the Salzach Bridge is Laufen in Bavaria...

 and then in later years moved on to Hallein

Hallein

Hallein is a historic town in the Austrian state of Salzburg, the capital of the Hallein district. It is located in the Tennengau region south of the City of Salzburg, along the Salzach river in the shadow of the Untersberg massif, near the border with Germany. With a population of c...

, Salzburg

Salzburg (state)

Salzburg is a state or Land of Austria with an area of 7,156 km2, located adjacent to the German border. It is also known as Salzburgerland, to distinguish it from its capital city, also named Salzburg...

.

Together with Josef Mohr

Josef Mohr

Joseph Mohr, sometimes spelt Josef was an Austrian Roman Catholic priest and composer, who wrote the words to the Christmas carol "Silent Night".-Biography:...

, a Catholic priest who wrote the original German lyrics, Gruber composed the music for the Christmas carol

Christmas carol

A Christmas carol is a carol whose lyrics are on the theme of Christmas or the winter season in general and which are traditionally sung in the period before Christmas.-History:...

 Silent Night

Silent Night

"Silent Night" is a popular Christmas carol. The original lyrics of the song "Stille Nacht" were written in Oberndorf bei Salzburg, Austria, by the priest Father Joseph Mohr and the melody was composed by the Austrian headmaster Franz Xaver Gruber...

. On Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve refers to the evening or entire day preceding Christmas Day, a widely celebrated festival commemorating the birth of Jesus of Nazareth that takes place on December 25...

 of 1818, Mohr, an assistant pastor at St Nicholas, showed Gruber a six-stanza poem he had written in 1816. He asked Gruber to set the poem to music. The church organ had broken down so Gruber produced a melody with guitar arrangement for the poem. The two men sang "Stille Nacht" for the first time at Christmas Mass in St Nicholas Church while Mohr played guitar and the choir repeated the last two lines of each verse.

In later years, Gruber composed additional arrangements of the carol for organ and for organ with orchestra, as well as scores of other carols and masses, many of which are still in print and sung today in Austrian churches.

External links

• Silent Night Association Life of Gruber
• History of song
• Born between Salzburg and Braunau am Inn
• Free scores at the Mutopia Project
  Mutopia project
  The Mutopia Project is a volunteer-run effort to create a library of free content sheet music, in a way similar to Project Gutenberg's library of public domain books.The music is reproduced from old scores that are out of copyright...