Silent Night

About this arrangement

Gruber’s lullaby in B flat major, two flats, with the whole first verse framed by a two-bar music-box introduction and a two-bar echo at the end, both played an octave higher. It is in 6/8: count two slow beats in a bar, each worth three quavers. The right hand begins the introduction with finger 5 on a high B flat; the verse starts with finger 3 on the F above middle C, and the fingering marks each shift. On “calm” and on “peace” the tune has a second note underneath it. The left hand rocks all the way through in quavers, a low bass note then the chord rising above it, twice in every bar, on B flat, E flat and F7 chords. Use a little pedal, changing it with each new chord.

Practice tip: Practise the left hand alone until the rocking is smooth and even and you could play it half asleep; it is the cradle the tune lies in. Then keep it softer than the right hand. The dotted rhythm of “Si-lent night” is long, short, then a quaver: don’t snatch the short note.

The words

Silent night, holy night, All is calm, all is bright, Round yon virgin mother and child. Holy infant so tender and mild, Sleep in heavenly peace, Sleep in heavenly peace.

A short history

“Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!” was first sung at the Christmas Eve Mass in St Nicholas Church, Oberndorf, near Salzburg in Austria, on 24 December 1818. The young assistant priest Joseph Mohr had written the words in 1816; he asked Franz Xaver Gruber, the schoolteacher and organist in the next village, to set them for two voices, choir and guitar, and the two men sang it together that night.

The song was taken up by Tyrolean folk-singing families who performed it on their travels in the 1820s and 1830s, and by the middle of the century it was being sung across Europe. The tune heard today is a smoothed version of Gruber’s original, which differs slightly, especially in the last line.

The English words most people sing are John Freeman Young’s translation of three of Mohr’s six verses, made in New York and published in 1859.

Quick facts

Tune

Franz Xaver Gruber, 1818

Words

John Freeman Young, 1859 (from Joseph Mohr’s German, 1816)

Level

Intermediate (full verses, a moving left hand)

Key

B flat major

Time signature

6/8

Length

16 bars

Tempo

Gently rocking, dotted crotchet = 48

Hands

Both hands on the grand staff: right hand on the treble staff, left hand on the bass staff

Copyright

Public domain tune and words; arrangement by Digital Greenhouse, free for personal, church and classroom use

Questions and answers