181. [Once in royal David's city]

Text Information
First Line: [Once in royal David's city]
Publication Date: 1991
Notes: Once in Royal David's City (United Methodist Hymnal #250)
Tune Information
Name: IRBY
Notes: Performance Note: This hymn begins the Christmas Service of lessons and Carols presented each year since the end of World War I at King's College, Cambridge. A boy soprano sings the first stanza a cappella, and is then joined by the choir, and later the congregation. The service, interspersing anthems and hymns with the readings from the Old and New Testaments, was written as an attempt to find fresh forms of worship and was presented to the city of Cambridge as a gift from Kings College. Readers were drawn from the choir and clergy and from officials of the city. Today the service is broadcast globally, and is the basis for countless similar services worldwide.



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