Once in Royal David’s City

About this arrangement

Henry Gauntlett’s 1849 tune for Cecil Frances Alexander’s children’s hymn, the carol that opens the King’s College Christmas Eve service. It starts with a half-bar pickup, “Once in”, on the G and B below middle C, so the thumb begins low and the hand moves up to C. The new thing is the pairs of quavers (eighth notes) joined by a curved line and sung to one syllable: “Da-vid’s”, “cat-tle” and “lit-tle”. In the last line the little finger reaches up to A for “Ma-ry” and “Je-sus”. The left hand plays a bass note and a chord, changing in the middle of the bar.

Practice tip: Lines 1 and 2 are the same music, so the first half is learnt in one go. Play each joined pair of quavers smoothly, as one word, and give the dotted crotchet before it its full length.

The words

Once in royal David's city stood a lowly cattle shed, where a mother laid her baby in a manger for his bed: Mary was that mother mild, Jesus Christ her little child.

A short history

Cecil Frances Alexander, an Irish writer of hymns for children, published the words in 1848 in Hymns for Little Children. The book explained the Apostles’ Creed to children a line at a time, and this hymn tells the Christmas story for the words “born of the Virgin Mary”. All Things Bright and Beautiful comes from the same book.

A year later the London organist Henry John Gauntlett set it to the tune called “Irby”. Gauntlett wrote more than a thousand hymn tunes, but this is the one he is remembered for.

Since 1919 the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at King’s College, Cambridge, has opened with this carol. A boy chorister sings the first verse alone, and by tradition the choirmaster chooses who it will be only just before the service begins.

Quick facts

Tune

Henry John Gauntlett, 1849 (“Irby”)

Words

Cecil Frances Alexander, 1848

Key

C major

Time signature

4/4

Length

12 bars and a pickup

Tempo

Steadily, crotchet = 88

Difficulty

Level 3: Notes below middle C (piece 67 of 201)

Type

Carol

Hands

Both: melody in the right hand, chords in the left

Copyright

Public domain tune; arrangement by Digital Greenhouse, free for personal and classroom use

Questions and answers