“It was on 24 December in the year of 1818 that the then assistant priest at the newly-established parish of St. Nicola in Oberndorf, Mr Josef Mohr, handed a poem to the organist Franz Gruber (who at that time was also a schoolteacher in Arnsdorf), with the request that he set it to a melody for 2 solo voices, choir and guitar accompaniment.” 

This was how Franz Xaver Gruber described the origins of the Christmas carol Silent Night in his “Authentic Comments” document of 30 December 1854. Gruber handed Joseph Mohr his composition the very same day. A few hours later, the song had its first performance after the Christmas mass. Joseph Mohr sang tenor and played guitar, Franz Xaver Gruber took the bass line and the final line of each verse was repeated by the choir. The accompaniment of sacred music by a guitar, which was unusual at the time, led to some false assumptions. Some people speculated that the old organ had not been working, but this turned out not to be correct. The use of the guitar can be explained by the fact that in 1818 Mohr and Gruber sang Silent Night for the first time at the end of the Christmas mass directly in front of the nativity scene.