Was a mouse to blame for the musical composition of ‘Silent Night’?
One of the many questions surrounding the song is on why Gruber decided to use a guitar to play ‘Silent Night’. After all, back then it was most certainly not the most fashionable of instruments, and there was definitely no earthly reason why it should be preferred in Church over the traditional organ. As a result of Gruber’s odd choice of instrument, one legend has come about; that the Church’s organ had fallen victim to a particularly hungry mouse, who nibbled away at the instrument’s bellows, hence rendering it unplayable.
The first suggestion that the organ may have been defective was made by one Josef Gottlieb in an essay in 1909, whilst the story of the famished mouse was first told in 1954 by Hertha Pauli.
However, there is no proof of any mice (or other non-human creatures for that matter) ever being involved in the series of events that led to ‘Silent Night’ being played on the guitar. What is documented however is that, whilst it was playable at the time, the organ desperately needed repair work – which it would coincidentally get the year after Gruber and Mohr’s first performance.
Was the skull of Joseph Mohr exhumed?
The exhumation of the skull of ‘Silent Night’s writer is one of those stories that is, in actual fact, totally true. Throughout his life, Joseph Mohr had refused to be painted, meaning that there is no picture of him in existence. This proved to be a problem for sculptor and pastor Joseph Mühlbacher who, in 1912, wanted to create a monument of Mohr and Gruber. Given the lack of any evidence on how Mohr actually looked, Mühlbacher did what any reasonable man would do and arranged for Mohr’s skull to be exhumed.
After the monument was completed then the skull was kept in Oberndorf until the construction of the Silent Night Memorial Chapel, where it was walled into the building. At the foot of the hill on which the Silent Night Chapel stands, one can find a cast of the sculpture made of Mohr’s face. The real kick in the teeth though? Given that there was most definitely no facial reconstruction technology available to call upon in 1912, Mühlbacher’s depiction of Mohr probably has very little to do with the priest’s actual facial likeness. Talk about facing your problems...
Can ‘Silent Night’ only be played on Christmas Eve?
Across the world, ‘Silent Night’ is thrown into various Christmas playlists – be it that of a radio station, or that of a choral ensemble – and played in the entire run-up to December 25. However, the Alpine region strictly adheres to a rule: that ‘Silent Night’ can only be played on December 24 – ideally during Christmas Eve mass. The culture is passed on from generation to generation, although certain regions have more morbid ways of passing the tradition on than others; parents in Bavaria deter their children from singing the carol on days other than Christmas Eve by telling them that every time a person sings the song on a day that is not December 24, a person will die.