ROYAL CHORAL SOCIETY: Stille Nacht (SILENT NIGHT)

Stille Nacht (‘Silent Night’) is one of the all-time best-loved Christmas carols. Its composition was a collaboration between two friends, Pastor Joseph Franz Mohr who trudged through the snow on Christmas Eve 1818 to visit his friend Franz Xaver Gruber, to see if Gruber could set his poem to music in time for the Christmas Eve church service Mohr was due to take a few hours later. Because the church organ was out of commission, the carol was performed that night before the altar of St Nicholas Church in Oberndorf with guitar and choir accompaniment. It must have been spellbinding.

Here, the Royal Choral Society sings an arrangement composed during the depths of the Covid pandemic by the Royal Choral Society’s Music Director Richard Cooke. The first performance was by just 48 socially-distanced members of the choir at the Christmas concert at the Royal Albert Hall in December 2020. For this concert, the choir of 150 had to reduce to 48 to meet Covid guidelines.

Conductor: Richard Cooke, Organist: Richard Pearce

The choir was formed in 1872 from the singers who sang at the opening of the Royal Albert Hall in 1871.