1787–1863 · Austria · Romantic
Franz Xaver Gruber (1787–1863) was an Austrian schoolteacher and church organist. He wrote the music of the carol Silent Night to words by the priest Joseph Mohr; it was first performed in the Oberndorf church at the Christmas Mass of 1818. The site has two editions of the carol: for choir, and for voice and guitar.
Franz Xaver Gruber came into the world on 25 November 1787 at Unterweitzberg, part of the village of Hochburg-Ach in Upper Austria. His parents were weavers and the family was poor. The baptismal record gave the boy's name as Conrad Xavier; it was later changed to Franz Xaver.
The plan was for the son to learn weaving from his father, and Until he came of age Gruber was a weaver. But the Hochburg schoolteacher Andreas Peterlechner, who gave the boy music lessons, noticed his ability and persuaded the father to let him train as a teacher. In those years such training was full of music.
Gruber studied music with the church organist Georg Hartdobler in nearby Burghausen; the lessons began in 1805. He took his teacher training at Ried im Innkreis, and in 1806 he passed the required examinations there and in Salzburg. The rules of the time then required a year as a teacher's assistant, and Gruber spent that year with Peterlechner in Hochburg-Ach.
On 12 November 1807 Gruber became the schoolteacher at Arnsdorf. There he also took the posts of church caretaker and organist. In 1808 he married a widow; the couple had two children, and both died young.
In 1816 Gruber took on the work of organist at the church of St Nicholas in Oberndorf. He carried out those duties from Arnsdorf, hoping to improve his finances and in time to win the teacher's post in Oberndorf. There he made the acquaintance of Joseph Mohr, who served that church as assistant priest.
Mohr had written the poem in 1816, and it had six stanzas. On 24 December 1818 he brought it to Gruber and asked him to write a Christmas carol for two solo voices and guitar. Gruber wrote the music the same day. At the midnight Mass in St Nicholas church the two performed the carol themselves: Mohr played the guitar, and the choir took up the final two lines of every stanza.
For 37 years the authorship of Gruber and Mohr stayed in dispute, and the carol was even attributed to Michael Haydn. Later Gruber himself made further arrangements of the carol, among them one for organ.
In 1829 Gruber gave up his posts at Oberndorf and Arnsdorf and moved to Berndorf, where he became a teacher and church caretaker. In 1833 he took the post of choir director at the parish church in Hallein, and in 1835 that of singer and organist. He lived in Hallein for the rest of his life.
Gruber's first wife died in 1825, and he married Maria Breitfuss, who had once been his pupil. They had ten children. Maria died in childbirth in 1841, and in 1842 Gruber married for the third time.
Gruber died in Hallein on 7 June 1863. By then he was a respected and fairly well-off man. His grave stands beside the parish church in Hallein.
In 1928 a monument to Mohr and Gruber was unveiled in Oberndorf. Austrian postage stamps showing Gruber and Mohr appeared in 1948 and 1987. In 1932 a street in Munich was named after him.
The house where Gruber lived in Hallein now holds the Silent Night museum. Another museum stands in his former teacher's house at Arnsdorf. In 1963 an organ known as the Gruber organ was installed in the parish church at Hallein. In 2012 a walking route bearing his name opened in Hochburg-Ach, and in 2018 a monument to him was unveiled in Berndorf.
Gruber was a church musician. The catalogue of his works published in 1989 lists more than 60 masses, about 20 liturgical works and 35 songs.
Gruber later arranged Silent Night for organ and for organ with orchestra. He wrote many more carols and masses, and a good number of them are still printed and sung in Austrian churches. Together with Joseph Mohr he also created other church songs.
The site's sheet music has two editions of the carol. 'Stille Nacht (hymntune)' is for SATB choir, at the 'Intermediate' level. 'Stille Nacht' is for voice and guitar, at the 'Intermediate+' level: a guitar was also heard at the carol's first performance. The choir edition is the easier place to start, before moving on to the guitar version.