Q 01/05

Silent Night was first performed on Christmas Eve 1818 in a village church near which Austrian city?

A) Vienna

B) Graz

C) Innsbruck

D) Salzburg

Answer · why

D) Salzburg

The church in Oberndorf was later destroyed by repeated flooding and replaced with the Silent-Night-Chapel.

Q 02/05

In Good King Wenceslas, whom does the king trudge through the snow to help?

A) A lost shepherd

B) A poor peasant

C) A wounded knight

D) An orphan boy

Answer · why

B) A poor peasant

His page nearly gives up in the cold but keeps going by stepping in the king's footprints.

Q 03/05

Who wrote the words to Silent Night, two years before it was set to music?

A) Karl Mauracher

B) Johann Hiebl

C) Joseph Mohr

D) Franz Xaver Gruber

Answer · why

C) Joseph Mohr

The young priest wrote the poem in 1816 at Mariapfarr, and a manuscript in his own hand was only discovered in 1995.

Q 04/05

Silent Night's tune was long credited to famous composers such as Haydn, Mozart and whom?

A) Beethoven

B) Schubert

C) Brahms

D) Bruckner

Answer · why

B) Schubert

The real composer was Franz Xaver Gruber, a village schoolmaster and organist, who wrote it for guitar accompaniment.

Q 05/05

In 2011 Silent Night was declared an intangible cultural heritage by which organisation?

A) The Austrian Parliament

B) The European Union

C) The Vatican

D) UNESCO

Answer · why

D) UNESCO

With more than 137,000 known recordings, it is among the most-recorded songs of any kind.