O Little Town of Bethlehem - Brass Band (Baritone Solo) - LM394

COMPOSER : Traditional

ARRANGER : Brian Harper

Suitable Section 4 Upwards

In the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth, and sometimes in the U.S. (especially in the Episcopal Church), the English hymn tune "Forest Green" is used.

"Forest Green" was adapted by Ralph Vaughan Williams from an English folk ballad called "The Ploughboy's Dream" which he had collected from a Mr. Garman of Forest Green, Surrey in 1903.

Henry Garman was born in 1830 in Sussex, and in the 1901 census was living in Ockley, Surrey; Vaughan Williams' manuscript notes he was a "labourer of Forest Green near Ockley – Surrey. ([aged] about 60?)", although Mr Garman would have been nearer 73 when he recited the tune.

 

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