Once In Royal David's City
SATB choral/organ score
PEL5022-Choir and Organ
Full score with parts for brass quintet and timpani
PEL5022-FS/Brass
AN ARRANGEMENT OF THE TRADITIONAL CAROL FOR SATB CHOIR AND ORGAN WITH OPTIONAL BRASS QUINTET AND TIMPANI
A beautiful opening to any Christmas concert or service. This is the traditional way to begin, especially in the Anglican tradition of the Service of Nine Lessons and Carols. Paul Halley's arrangement emerges in its inventiveness and beauty after the first two verses familiarly harmonized by A. H. Mann. Halley's deft handling of this beloved work is at once gentle and lovely, rich and inspiring, offering a give and take between voice parts in the inner verses, and culminating in a glorious descant for the sopranos on the last verse, a hallmark of Halley's style. The optional brass and timpani play on the last two verses.
Texts
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.
He came down to earth from heaven,
Who is God and Lord of all,
And his shelter was a stable,
And his cradle was a stall;
With the poor, and mean, and lowly,
Lived on earth our Saviour holy.
And through all his wondrous childhood
He would honor and obey,
Love and watch the lowly maiden,
In whose gentle arms he lay;
Christian children all must be
Mild obedient, good as he.
For he is our childhood's pattern,
Day by day like us he grew,
He was little, weak and helpless,
Tears and smiles like us he knew;
And he feeleth for our sadness,
And he shareth in our gladness.
And our eyes at last shall see him,
Through his own redeeming love,
For that child so dear and gentle
Is our Lord in heaven above;
And he leads his children on
To the place where he is gone.
Not in that poor lowly stable,
With the oxen standing by,
We shall see him; but in heaven,
Set at God's right hand on high;
Where like stars his children crowned
All in white shall wait around.
Words by Cecil Frances Alexander
