Silent Night

The carol was first sung on Christmas Eve 1818 in the church of St Nicholas at Oberndorf near Salzburg, with Franz Xaver Gruber's melody set to a poem Joseph Mohr had written two years earlier and accompanied on guitar. The original score was lost, and for most of the nineteenth century the tune was attributed to Haydn, Mozart or Beethoven; a manuscript in Mohr's hand, found in the twentieth century, settled the authorship. Travelling singing families carried it out of the Tyrol; UNESCO listed it as intangible cultural heritage in 2011.