Salzburg’s Christmas present to the world
YOU may think of Salzburg as the epitome of a Christmas destination, but row back to the 19th Century and the Austrian city was anything but cheery.
The Napoleonic Wars had taken their toll, and frequent floods in the region caused crop failures and food shortages. The country needed something to lift its spirits.
So in 1818, Joseph Mohr, a priest in the nearby village of Oberndorf on the banks of the Salzach river, decided a new carol might do the job. He walked the few miles to the neighbouring village of Arnsdorf to see his friend – the schoolmaster, composer and organist Franz Gruber – and asked if he could come up with a tune to a poem he’d written two years earlier.
Gruber obliged, and on Christmas Eve in Oberndorf’s St Nicholas Church, Mohr played the new melody on his guitar while they both sang Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht – Silent Night, Holy Night.
Neither man could possibly have envisaged how it would continue to resonate down the generations and across the globe. Translated into more than 100 languages, the carol has been recorded by big hitters from Elvis Presley to Sinead O’Connor. Its success was largely down to two travelling bands, the Rainers and Strassers, who took it to the courts of Austria and Russia and as far as New York City.
Audiences assumed the carol was by a famous composer, perhaps Mozart, Salzburg’s most noted son. Gruber heard of these rumours and set the record straight, penning a letter to the church authorities stating his authorship. Early drafts of this letter are among the many artefacts, including Mohr’s guitar, now displayed in the Silent Night Museum in Hallein.
It is housed in Gruber’s later home beside the church where he was organist and choirmaster until his death in 1863. But that is just one of six Silent Night museums in the area – as well as a carol that came to represent Christmas, the duo unwittingly spawned a Silent Night tourism industry to rival that of The Sound Of Music.
Today the main attraction is the Silent Night Chapel, built on the spot where Mohr and Gruber first performed. This simple building, with stained-glass windows that depict Mohr and Gruber on either side, attracts up to 5,000 visitors every Christmas Eve. Many others flock here during Advent when it is surrounded by one of Austria’s fabled Christmas markets.
Like many people, I have sung Silent Night every Christmas as far back as I can remember. To embark on a pilgrimage that shed light on its roots imbued the carol with greater meaning. And to stand beside the altar on the spot where it was first performed with fellow pilgrims from as far afield as America and Japan was to experience the real poignancy of the words and music.
In Austria, commercial use of Silent Night is forbidden, and tradition dictates it must not be played until Christmas Eve.
Only then does a sudden silence fall across the buzzing Christmas markets that surround Salzburg Cathedral, and in the tiny square in
Oberndorf, and at numerous other churches across the country.
And only then does a solo voice cut through the cold night air with the poignant, instantly recognisable opening. Be it Stille Nacht, Douce Nuit, Noche De Paz or one of the many other incarnations of Silent Night, its message of hope remains the same.
Therein lies the enduring appeal of a song that began in hard times but which put Oberndorf and surrounding towns and villages firmly on the map.
Lizzie Enfield was a guest of Salzburgerland Tourism (salzburgerland.com). Double rooms at Hotel Stein in Salzburg from €280 per night (hotelstein.at).