Silent Night

Silent Night (NOBC 86) was composed as a six-stanza poem by catholic priest Joseph Mohr in 1816 and set to music two years later by his friend, a schoolteacher Franz Gruber in the village of Arnsdorf in Austria. The legend is that Mohr needed an extra carol for the Christmas Eve midnight mass and Gruber, who was also the church choir master, came up with music to accompany the poem.