Mohr Gruber Memorial
The Mohr Gruber Memorial in the Salzburg municipality of Oberndorf near Salzburg is a monument to Joseph Mohr and Franz Xaver Gruber , the creators of the Christmas carol Silent Night, Holy Night, unveiled in 1928 . The bronze sculpture stands in front of the local parish church and is intended to commemorate the first performance of the song in Oberndorf in 1818.
history
The Mohr-Gruber memorial was originally intended solely as a monument to Joseph Mohr, the lyricist of the Christmas carol, and was to be erected in Wagrain in the Salzburg Pongau , the place where Mohrs died. The initiator was a committee formed there in 1908 under the leadership of Pastor Augustin Reiter, which commissioned the priest and academic sculptor Josef Mühlbacher with the creation of such a monument. Mühlbacher initially made his first bronze cast at his own expense in 1912. However, the committee was unable to raise sufficient funds for the fees and costs of the installation. Due to the circumstances of the First World War and the subsequent period of high inflation , it was not completed during this time, and the idea of erecting the monument in Wagrain was abandoned.
Finally, in 1926, Mühlbacher found a sponsor in the Bavarian Association of Education Officials. He bought the Mohr sculpture from Mühlbacher and at the same time commissioned him to rework it as a monument for Gruber, the composer of the Silent Night song.
The newly designed sculpture - erected in the left side chapel of the parish church in Oberndorf - was ceremoniously unveiled on December 26, 1928. The community of Oberndorf and the parish of Oberndorf committed to preserving and maintaining the monument.
In 1968, as part of a redesign of the church forecourt, the sculpture was moved to the edge of the square so that it was more visible to the general public and is now, after another redesign of the square, placed on the left side of the church entrance.
layout
The Mohr Gruber monument is a bronze sculpture resting on a granite base and depicts Joseph Mohr with the motif of the window gazer. Mohr looks out of the sky window at his former places of activity on earth and listens to the music of the Silent Night song. Behind it Gruber plays the guitar, which presumably does not correspond to the historical fact with regard to the world premiere of the song in Oberndorf on December 24th, 1818. A starry sky is suggested as the background of the scene.
While Mohr's head is faithfully shaped after his exhumed skull and is available in the original version from 1912, Gruber's grandson Felix Gruber was the model for the later portrait of Gruber.
On the memorial in the lower area of Gruber's sculpture there is the note MANCUS (= mutilated; incomplete), which refers to the fact that the sculptor's right hand was paralyzed after a stroke and he was working on Gruber's portrait with the inexperienced left Hand finished.
The inscription under the portrait reads: "THE PRIEST JOSEPH MOHR AS THE POET AND THE TEACHER FRANZ GRUBER AS THE COMPOSER". The signature is "ÆRI • COMPOSVIT • MVEHLBACHER • HOC • MONVMENTVM • FIRMIVS • ÆRE • MOHR • IPSE • POETA • SIBI". ("Mühlbacher created this monument out of bronze; Mohr created something more solid than metal for himself as a poet.")
On the left outside of the sculpture you can read the year 1912. The object was cast by Erzgießerei AG in Vienna.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b See the history of the creation of the sculpture at www.pfarreoberndorf.at ( Memento of the original from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
- ↑ Gruber is said to have made the suggestion that the Silent Night song should be accompanied by the guitar at the premiere; The quote “We play it on the guitar” is rumored several times, for example in a tourism advertising folder on www.moor-ausflug.at ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on July 21, 2015). Historically correct, however, Mohr may have accompanied instrumentally: "Mohr sang tenor and took over the accompaniment with the guitar, Gruber sang bass." (See on the song creation http://www.stillenacht.at/de/liedentstehung.asp , accessed on 21 July 2015.)
- ↑ In contrast to the artist's Latin signature, a U is actually used for the sound [u] instead of the usual letter V.
- ↑ The embossing on the memorial on the right side reads: "ERZGIESSEREI AG WIEN VII".
Coordinates: 47 ° 56 ′ 23.1 ″ N , 12 ° 56 ′ 34.8 ″ E