On Christmas Eve of 1818, Catholic priest Josef Mohr, showed Austrian composer Franz Xaver Gruber a six-stanza poem he had written in 1816 and he asked Gruber to set the poem to music.

Because the church organ had broken down Gruber produced a melody with guitar arrangement for the poem. The two men sang 'Stille Nacht' for the first time at Christmas Mass in St Nicholas Church while Mohr played guitar and the choir repeated the last two lines of each verse.

That's the history of one of t...