What Child Is This?

The writer. William Chatterton Dix was born in Bristol on 14 June 1837 and went to the city's grammar school ^[6][8]. His father, a Bristol surgeon, wrote a life of the Bristol poet Thomas Chatterton, and the son carried the poet's name ^[6][8]. He trained for business and became the manager of a marine insurance firm in Glasgow ^[8][7]. He wrote hymns alongside that work, among them the Epiphany hymn "As with gladness men of old" ^[6][5].

The book of 1867. Bramley was a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and Stainer was the college organist ^[1][4]. Their preface says they had taken "considerable pains" to find traditional carols not yet printed, "but without much success". So they owed most of the book's new material to the composers, authors and translators named in its index, and added, with two or three pieces of their own, "the best and most popular melodies" from the collections they had ^[1]. They offered it to "lovers of music" who wished to "keep the Feast of Christmas with mirth which shall not overstep the bounds of reverence" ^[1][4]. On 1 December 1867 the Musical Times listed the book among Novello's publications "during the last month", as "Twenty Christmas Carols, Old and New" ^[3]. Novello's advertisement on page 235 lists all twenty: No. 14 is "What Child is this?", its music "Old English" ^[3].

What the page shows. In our copy of the first series, a later printing that advertises the first and second series together, the carol is No. XIV on pages 32 and 33, headed "What Child is this?" in quotation marks ^[1]. Four voices share two staves, in E minor and 6/8 time, from a single upbeat note ^[1]. The first verse and its chorus run under the notes, the chorus marked to be sung very loud; verses 2 and 3 are printed below as eight-line stanzas, each with its own chorus words ^[1]. The first series' own index gives the words to "W. C. Dix" and the air as "Old English", and names no one for the harmony ^[1]. The index of the later complete book marks some carols added after the first series "Har. by J. S.", but not this one ^[2]. The book's music editor was John Stainer (1840 to 1901) ^[1][13].

The tune. The book never uses the name Greensleeves, but the air is that Elizabethan tune, which hymnals name GREENSLEEVES ^[11][10][14]. A ballad of the Lady Greensleeves was entered at Stationers' Hall in London in September 1580, and the tune survives in lute books from about 1590 ^[17][10]. Its full history is on our Greensleeves page. In the book, the tune's fifth note, on "this" in the first line, is C natural, as is the C on the second "this" at the start of the chorus. Where the line turns back up to the home note, at "watch" and at "Son of", it takes C sharp and D sharp ^[1].

Which year? Good sources give three dates. The Hymnology Archive dates the first series 1868, citing the Musical Times review of December 1868, and gives 1871 for an illustrated edition; the Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology dates the book 1871 ^[10][9][4]. The Musical Times listings of 1 December 1867, naming all twenty carols, show the first series on sale in November 1867 ^[3][16].

Myth and record. Often told, in Hymnary.org's notes for leaders and in the source lines of some hymnals: Dix made the carol from a longer poem of his, "The Manger Throne", written in 1865 ^[11]. What the record shows: "The Manger Throne" is a different carol by Dix, beginning "Like silver lamps in a distant shrine". It is No. II in the same first series, set by C. Steggall, twelve numbers before What Child is this? ^[1][2][3]. The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology calls the poem story incorrect ^[9].

Dix's carol has three verses, each eight lines long. In Bramley and Stainer's book, the second half of each verse is sung to the chorus music, with new words every time ^[1]. Our arrangement sings verses 1 and 3.

Verse 1. The singer looks at the baby on Mary's lap and asks who he is, while angels sing and shepherds keep watch, as in Luke, where shepherds were "keeping watch over their flock by night" ^[21]. The chorus answers: this is Christ the King, guarded by the shepherds and sung by the angels. "Haste, haste to bring Him laud" means hurry to praise him: "laud" is praise ^[20].

Verse 2. Why does he lie in such "mean estate", so low and poor a state, among the feeding ox and ass ^[20]? Luke names only a manger; an ox and an ass appear in Isaiah: "The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib" ^[21]. The answer is that the "silent Word", the baby who cannot yet speak, is already pleading for sinners. "The Word" is John's name for Christ, and "the Word made Flesh" echoes John 1:14 ^[21]. The chorus looks ahead to the cross: the nails and the spear that will pierce him ^[21]. Bramley and Stainer's book has "Good Christian, fear", spoken to one listener; the Hymnal 1982 prints "Good Christians" ^[1][14].

Verse 3. Bring him incense, gold and myrrh, the wise men's gifts in Matthew ^[21]. Peasant and king alike should "own" him, that is, acknowledge him as their lord ^[20]. The King of kings brings salvation, so loving hearts should make him their king. The chorus ends the carol with Mary singing a lullaby and a shout of joy: Christ is born.

It is a Christmas carol ^[1]. The Musical Times reviewer of 1868 thought the book's carols "may be easily sung by the many family groups called together by the festive season" ^[4]. In hymnals the tune is GREENSLEEVES and the meter is 8.7.8.7 with refrain ^[11][14]. The Hymnology Archive, quoting an American hymnologist, notes that Dix's stanza is not a simple four lines with a refrain, and that hymnals which treat the first chorus as a refrain lose part of what Dix wrote ^[10]. The Hymnal 1982 prints it at No. 115 in that refrain form ^[14].

Our arrangement is read from the first series, pages 32 and 33, a whole tone higher, in F-sharp minor ^[1]. The soprano sings the book's tune, with a few notes shortened to leave room for breaths we wrote in for beginners. Our alto, tenor and bass are new parts, written on the chords of the book's four unsigned parts. We sing verse 1 and verse 3, each with its own printed chorus: "This, this is Christ the King" after the first, and "Raise, raise, the song on high" after the third ^[1]. Two singers take soprano and alto; three add the bass; four add the tenor.

• Another tune for the words. In 1916 Charles L. Hutchins's Carols Old and Carols New, in Boston, printed Dix's words twice: as No. 108 to a tune by J. T. Field, and as No. 402 to the "Old English" air, with verse 2 still reading "Good Christian, fear" ^[15].
• Other words for the tune. A New Year's Day carol, "The old year now away is fled", was printed to Greensleeves in 1642 ^[17][10].

• Soprano: the Greensleeves tune, most often on F-sharp. The top E comes only on the repeated words that open the chorus's first and third lines ("This, this", "Haste, haste"), the low C-sharp only at the end of each second line ("sleeping?", "sing:").
• Alto: under the tune, most often on C-sharp, then E. It joins the tune's E at the end of the first and third lines ("rest,", "sweet,"), and goes above it only at the end of "sleeping?" and "own Him:", an E-sharp a third over the tune's low C-sharp. Each verse and chorus ends on its low A.
• Tenor: the middle of the chord, most often on G-sharp, then A and B. Its top C-sharp comes only on "Child" and "An-" in verse 1 and "bring" and "King" in verse 3; its low C-sharp only on the last "ry!" of "Mary!".
• Bass: the bass line, most often on C-sharp. Its top G-sharp ends the first and third lines of every verse and chorus ("rest,", "sweet,"); its low F-sharp opens each verse's first and third lines ("What Child", "Whom An-") and ends every verse and chorus.