Carol singing.

My car radio is tuned to Classic FM at the moment, and being this time of year, much of their output consists of carols. And every year this brings to mind the persistent myths and legends which surround the carol "Silent Night". The story which you will hear repeated over and over again is that it was composed on the spur of the moment by a parish priest in Austria on a Christmas Eve in the early 1800's when he discovered that the church organ had broken down, and they needed something which could be sung to a simple guitar accompaniment. Nice story, but complete fiction I'm afraid. It was certainly performed (as far as anyone knows for the first time) on Christmas Eve 1818 at a church in Oberndorf, Austria, and was indeed sung to a guitar accompaniment, but it had been written some two years before, and there was nothing wrong (or any more wrong than usual) with the organ.