Scores of colorfully attired singers and musicians - mostmembers of local folkloric societies - sang the andachtsjodler, sortof a sober "Auld Lang Syne." The audience rose in unison and softlyyodeled along, remembering absent loved ones and basking in the warmreverie of the season.
Moments later, we dashed out into the frosty winter night, theeerily illuminated medievel fortress glaring down from the cliffabove. Our taxi wended through the narrow streets, past the boothsof the annual Christmas street market. Earlier in the day, themarket was a merchandising frenzy. Now, it was silent. Big whitelights shimmered in artfully draped pine boughs.
Stille nacht, heilige nacht.
Even in this bustling city renowned for shopping and music(especially exploiting its fame as the birthplace of Mozart), all wascalm, all was bright. This is the birthplace of Josef Mohr, theyoung assistant priest who on Dec. 12, 1818, in the nearby village ofOberndorf penned the words to the season's most popular carol.
Mohr moved away from Oberndorf before the next Christmas; hedied in 1848, not fully appreciating how his little poem touchedhearts around the world.
So last week, nearing the 175th anniversary of the firstperformance of "Silent Night, Holy Night" on Dec. 24, 1818, theAustrian National Tourism Office, local tourism offices and LufthansaGerman Airlines hosted a pilgrimage for me and other journalists. Wefollowed the footsteps of Mohr and his "Silent Night" composer, FranzGruber.
We traversed the state of Salzburg, bordering German Bavaria,and trained westward through the Tyrolean Alps to the Ziller Valley,where the song's popularity took wing.
But never did we dare ask the locals to sing or play the carol.Tradition dictates that the song remain silent until Christmas Eve.
From the city of Salzburg, we drove a few miles (an innercityelectric train also departs from the main railway station) toOberndorf. We were greeted by Ann Marie Livingston, a young womanborn here but college-educated in the United States. Now she's backhome as tourism board director and curator of the Silent NightMuseum.
The modern little museum is packed with items applying to thebirth of the song and history of the village, which owes its wealth(fishing) and its poverty (flooding) to the Salzach River.Particularly devastating spring floods led to the demise of thegothic St. Nicholas Church in 1906.
In fact, the flooding forced the creation of "Silent Night."
Contrary to the Disneyesque fable that churchmice chewed up theorgan's bellows, Livingston explained that persistent water damagemade the old organ wheeze its last. She'll show you the repairman'sbill, dated 1825, to prove it.
Mohr refused to give his parishioners, mostly rough-hewn boatmenwho would take any excuse to skip church, a Christmas Eve masswithout music. So he wrote the six-verse poem and walked threesnowswept miles to Arnsdorf where Gruber, his organist and friend,was teacher and sexton at the church. Annual event
In 1937, a tiny jewel of a chapel was built on the safelyelevated site of the original St. Nicholas. That is where "SilentNight" fans visit, especially on weekends and most especially onChristmas Eve day, when thousands jockey for positions around thesnow-blanketed hill for a 5 p.m. program. The yearlong-anticipatedfinale, of course, is "Silent Night."
In Arnsdorf, Gruber's 1771 school and church still stand, and wewere able to see the schoolroom where he taught (still used) and hisupstairs apartment (now a well-preserved time capsule, including mostof Gruber's furniture). The museum is administered by Gruber's 16thsuccessor, Mrs. Sepp Aigner, a gracious host who, through atranslator, pointed out the desk where Gruber probably wrote the"Silent Night" music for guitar and two male voices - his and Mohr's.
The Christmas Eve mass went on, but the song did not become animmediate tradition. Mohr was transferred the following October andeventually settled in the then-lonely south Salzburg mountain outpostof Wagrain, where he is buried. Now, Wagrain is a popular ski area.
Gruber eventually moved just south of Salzburg to Hallein,settled in the 5th century B.C. by the Celts, who discovered thewealth of salt in the hills. Now a factory town working to spruceitself up for tourists, Hallein will open the Franz X. Gruber Museumby Christmas, with Gruber's guitar as the centerpiece.
Gruber's grave, where he was buried in 1863 after a long stintas composer, organist and choir director at the Hallein parishchurch, is a popular site of commemorative concerts each advent.Most notable is the Christmas Eve concert, at which Luciano Pavarottionce performed, followed by an 11 p.m. mass.
After the short stop in Hallein, we returned to Salzburg andtook a westbound train to Jenbach in the Ziller Valley, just east ofthe Olympic city of Innsbruck. "Silent Night" was born in the stateof Salzburg, but grew up around these musically rich Alpine mountainsof Tyrol. Organ master
As we learned in Oberndorf, the man who rebuilt thewater-damaged organ was Carl Mauracher, based in the hilly ZillerValley town of Fugen. Mauracher found the untitled music for "SilentNight" in the organ loft and took it back home, where he showed it toa family of singers who performed around the world.
This portion of our saga was documented in Fugen's Heimatmuseum,a house dating from the year 1050 now converted into a treasure troveof folklore and more mundane slices of old daily life. There welearned about the world-famous Rainer Singers.
The song became a holiday staple of the Rainer family's programs(and those of other Tyrolean touring groups). The Rainers introducedit to America in 1834 at New York's Trinity Church, and it was nicelytranslated into English in 1863 by John Freeman Young, Episcopalbishop of Florida. In time, this so-called "Tyrolean Folk Carol"nearly lost all ties to its true originators. And a few changes inlyrics and melody were introduced over the years, as Josef Argus, aFugen shopkeeper and noted expert on the song, pointed out to us.
But in 1854, the king of Prussia researched the carol's roots.His journey led him back to Salzburg - to Mohr, to Gruber and their"Silent Night, Holy Night." Specifically
For more information, contact the Austrian National TouristOffice, 500 Fifth Ave., New York 10110; call (212) 944-6880. Closerto home, Bronner's Christmas Wonderland in Frankenmuth, Mich., onNov. 20 dedicated a replica of the Oberndorf chapel, which wasapproved by Oberndorf officials; call (517) 652- 9931.
Joe Pixler is a Chicago area free-lance journalist.
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