The Birthday of a King

William Harold Neidlinger (1863-1924) was born in Brooklyn, where he studied with organist Dudley Buck and later taught in the music department of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. He also worked as an organist and choral conductor. He studied in London and Paris starting in 1898, and taught voice in Chicago starting in 1901.

Neidlinger was a composer, conductor, organist at St. Michael’s Church, New York City, and voice teacher, but his main interest was working with retarded children, and he founded a school for this purpose in East Orange, N.J. Here, he put into practice his elaborately developed theories of musical pedagogy and therapy. He was a prolific editor of vocal songbooks, especially for children, and a theorist on musical methods and education.

Neidlinger composed two operas. His religious music includes a mass, a Christmas hymn called “The Birthday of a King” (1890), and the cantata Prayer, Praise, and Promise. He was a prolific songwriter, setting texts by Whitman, Heine, Tennyson, Longfellow, and others, as well as his own poetry.

"The Birthday of a King" is really Niedlinger's only "remembered" work. It was originally published in 1890 by G. Shirmer, and has remained popular, although not as much as it once was. He composed both words and music, and the complete text is:

In the little village of Bethlehem,
There lay a child one day;
And the sky was bright with a holy light
O’er the place where Jesus lay.

Refrain

Alleluia! O how the angels sang.
Alleluia! How it rang!
And the sky was bright with a holy light
’Twas the birthday of a king.

’Twas a humble birthplace, but O how much
God gave to us that day,
From the manger bed what a path has led,
What a perfect, holy way.

The score is attached below, as well as photo of Niedlinger, and of the grave of him and his wife. Also attached is a picture of the original song publication, and several photos of St. Michael's Church in New York City.

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