Autor: Franz Xaver Gruber (1787-1863)
Obra: Stille Nacht (1818)
Intèrprets: Hassler-Consort; Franz Raml (conductor)

Pintura: Pierre-Louis Cretey (c.1635-1702) - The adoration of the sheperds

Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!
Alles schläft; einsam wacht
Nur das traute heilige Paar.
Holder Knab im lockigten Haar, .
Schlafe in himmlischer Ruh!
Schlafe in himmlischer Ruh!

Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!
Gottes Sohn! O wie lacht
Lieb´ aus deinem göttlichen Mund,
Da schlägt uns die rettende Stund,
Jesus in deiner Geburt!
Jesus in deiner Geburt!

Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!
Die der Welt Heil gebracht,
Aus des Himmels goldenen Höhn
Uns der Gnaden Fülle läßt seh´n
Jesum in Menschengestalt,
Jesum in Menschengestalt

Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!
Wo sich heut alle Macht
Väterlicher Liebe ergoß
Und als Bruder huldvoll umschloß
Jesus die Völker der Welt,
Jesus die Völker der Welt.

Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!
Lange schon uns bedacht,
Als der Herr vom Grimme befreit,
In der Väter urgrauer Zeit
Aller Welt Schonung verhieß,
Aller Welt Schonung verhieß.

Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!
Hirten erst kundgemacht
Durch den Engel Alleluja.
Tönt es laut bei Ferne und Nah:
Jesus, der Retter ist da!
Jesus, der Retter ist da!

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Franz Xaver Gruber
(Unterweizburg, 25 November 1787 - Hallein, 7 June 1863)

Austrian composer. He wrote the famous Christmas song Stille Nacht (gwv145) and many other sacred and secular works. His biographical details derive largely from a formal statement which he drew up in 1854 to establish his claim on the song and to correct the faulty version of the melody (still familiar today) which had by then become well established. The third son of a poor weaver, at the age of 18 he learnt from Georg Hartdobler, organist at Burghausen, to accompany choral services from a figured bass. He taught at the Nebenschule in Arnsdorf from 1807, and was also Kantor and organist at St Nikolaus in Oberndorf (1816-29); he then taught at Berndorf until 1835, when he became regens chori at Hallein. Of his four children who survived beyond childhood, both sons were also composers. Stille Nacht was written on 24 December 1818 at the request of Josef Mohr (1792-1848), the assistant priest at St Nikolaus, who had written the text in 1816 (and may also have written the text of Gruber's German Te Deum, dated 5 February 1818). It was first sung that night probably at the midnight Mass; a guitar accompaniment was used. Karl Mauracher, an organ builder in the Zillertal, visited Arnsdorf in 1821, and must have been shown the song; Gruber referred to a ‘well-known Zillertaler’ who took the song to the Tyrol. It was probably taken to the Leipzig trade fair of 1831 by the Strasser family from the Zillertal, and first appeared in print in 1838 (‘slightly changed’, according to Gruber). Its fame spread rapidly: it came to be regarded as a Tyrolean folksong, and was eventually translated into many different languages. Stille Nacht, like Welch ein Jubelton (gwv148), is an example of the Weihnachtslied. Unlike most examples of the previous century it is romantic in intention, although like some 18th-century Weihnachtslieder it owes much to the language of contemporary Austrian folk music; it also owes something to the conventions of Italian pastoral music, with its lilting 3rds and 6ths and compound metre. The rest of Gruber's considerable output has been discovered and documented largely since the 1980s through the publications of the Stille-Nacht-Gesellschaft; it survives almost exclusively in local and private archives in and around Salzburg, and consists principally of German vernacular settings in a simple tuneful style for liturgical use, following contemporary Salzburg practice. Gruber himself prepared thematic catalogues in 1848 and 1861, providing evidence of numerous compositions which are now lost.

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