Christmas Carols for Harp Ensemble Silent Night Franz Gruber (1787-1863) arranged for harp Stephen Dunstone

Silent Night Arranged for - 4-part harp ensemble Level - Easy Please click the "About this work & Performance Notes" heading below for further details This book is supplied as a score and set of 4 parts   Buy this music now £10.00 +p&p

Artist Profile and catalogue of works - Stephen Dunstone

Silent Night

The four parts are:-

Melody
Counter-Melody
Harmony 1
Harmony 2

 

Silent Night must be one of the most famous compositions ever, and yet the music is by a composer whose name many (most?) people don’t know.

The story of how the carol came into being has been embellished in various ways, as little bits of fiction have been added and have taken on the status of fact, but (as far as I can gather) it does appear to be true that the assistant pastor of St Nicholas’ church in the Austrian alpine village of Oberndorf, Josef Mohr, needed a Christmas carol in something of a hurry on Christmas Eve 1818. So he turned to the organist and choirmaster (who was also a school teacher and church caretaker), Franz Gruber, who (time being of the essence) rustled up a little number to fit the bill, little knowing that it was going to become possibly the most well known and best-loved carol of all time.

He wrote it with guitar accompaniment (apparently), because the church organ wasn’t working (according to one story, mice had nibbled through the bellows). Obviously, if he’d had a bunch of harpists handy he would have written it for a harp ensemble instead. If I ever manage to create a time machine, I might travel back to Christmas 1818 in Oberndorf with a select band of players and a manuscript. But then they do say that tampering with the past can cause catastrophic consequences in the era from which the time-traveller has come (as clearly demonstrated in Back To The Future), so maybe I shouldn’t - although it would be fun to have had a hand in one of the most famous compositions ever.

The story of how the carol made its way from Oberndorf to the rest of the world, courtesy of an organ repairer and two families of travelling folk-singers initially, is rather a good story in its own right, but I’ll leave you to research that one yourselves.

Title:	Silent Night
Composer:	Franz Gruber
Arranger:	Stephen Dunstone
Instrumentation:	4 Lever or Pedal Harps
Level:	Easy
Format:	A4 stapled score and set of 4 A4 parts
Weight:	140gm
ISMN:	979-0-57046-288-9
Our Ref:	SD1049
Publisher:	Creighton's Collection
Printer/Distributor:	Creighton's Collection
Edition/Year:	2018
Origin:	UK