Everyone knows the story of "Silent Night": the priest who wrote some verses after heading home from a call on a sick parishioner and seeing the beauty of the night, the organ wasn't working because mice chewed on the bellows; priest asks the sexton to set the verses to music—and voila, in 1818 "Silent Night" is born.
Well, that's the legend, anyway, but more convoluted is how the song got from the small Austrian town of Obendorf to the world: most tales credit it to an internationally-known singing group, the Rainiers, who carried the song out of Europe.
This is the earliest recorded version of "Silent Night," by the Haydn Quartet, I believe recorded by the Edison company. You will notice the lyrics are appreciably different from what we sing today, and I wonder if these are closer to the lyrics are closer to what was written by Gruber. It's also interesting to notice the difference in song performance techniques in that era.
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