O Little Town

On the southern edge of the Isle of Mull in the Inner Hebrides there is an arm of land, the Ross of Mull, that reaches out westwards towards the holy island of Iona. On the map, the end of this peninsula looks a little like a hand wearing mittens, or perhaps a cat’s paw reaching towards a mouse. The inlet between the hand and the thumb is Loch na Làthaich, and on the shores of the loch sits the village of Bunessan. This is a landscape defined by the brown-green of the hills and the grey-blue of the sky and sea. It is a beautiful landscape but also a harsh one, where crofters scraped out a precarious living. Bunessan village viewed from Lower Ardtun © JaneMcArtney [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons Just outside Bunessan is a stone monument commemorating a woman named Mary MacDonald. In some ways Mary’s life was unremarkable: in outline it was the same as hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other women who li...

Vaughan Williams appears frequently in my book  and has cropped up not a few times in this blog too, probably more than any other composer. There are a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, he's one of my favourite composers. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, his influence on hymn music in England is enormous, thanks to his work as Music Editor of important books such as The English Hymnal and Songs of Praise . Some of the best-known hymn-tunes owe their success to RVW, and indeed many of them would not have become hymn-tunes at all if it had not been for him. Most of the folk-songs that he adapted for use as hymns were given names referring to the place where the tune was collected, so this means that his work is a rich source for someone who is interested in the link between the place and the music. While I was researching the book I contacted the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society for some information about the origins of FOREST GREEN . The Chairman of the Society, Simon Coo...

I have not often been to Ireland, I am sorry to say, but whenever I have it has been a delightful experience. The first time was in 1984, when as a newly-graduated fresh-faced lanky youth I did a sailing trip starting and ending in Poole and taking in the Channel Islands and Brittany as well as Baltimore in the south-west of Ireland. Since then I have visited Dublin a handful of times, and visited places along the east coast including Howth, Dún Laoghaire, Wexford and the wonderful Carlingford Lough, right on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. In each case I have arrived by sailing boat, which perhaps contributes to the fact that the experience was in every case a delight. The profile picture of me that you can see on this blog was taken in Dublin. It is my first and - to date - only selfie. The expression on my face is a mixture of satisfaction with the haircut I have just had, and frustration with the fact that my friends insisted on eating at a pizza restaurant,...

Many thanks to the two people who have reviewed my book on Amazon and Lulu, both of whom have kindly given me a five-star rating! It has also been favourably reviewed in the latest edition of the journal of the Vaughan Williams Society. I am also expecting a review to appear in the next issue of Church Music Quarterly, though I don't yet know if that will be favourable! If you have read and enjoyed the book, please do contribute a review on Amazon or Lulu - the more the merrier! If you haven't read the book, click on the link to get your hands on a copy for just £10 plus postage! I will continue to add to this blog from time to time, so if you haven't already done so do please enter your email address in the box opposite, to receive automatic notification when I post something here. This will not give me access to your email address. Thank you

'Hymn-tunes that are named after places' is a bit of a mouthful to say and a handful to type, so I've been trying to think of a single word that I can use instead. 'Toponhymn' suggests itself, but perhaps looks a little like a character from Gulliver's Travels . Do any readers have a suggestion? Assuming, of course, that there are some readers out there... A journey to the places that inspired the tunes is, I suppose, a 'hymnodyssey'. My journey this week must, of course, take in the little towns whose names are enshrined in Passiontide and Easter hymns.  HORSLEY Without thinking I set out (in my imagination, at least) for Horsley in Gloucestershire, hoping to find there some trace of the tune HORSLEY, which is used for C F Alexander's There is a green hill far away . The hill referred to in the hymn is, of course, Calvary, and the city wall is that of Jerusalem; but Mrs Alexander had the hills of Northern Ireland before her when she wrote t...

Thank you to everyone who has read this blog and been encouraged to buy the book. If you have read and enjoyed the book, please could I ask you to write a review on Amazon and/or on Lulu.com . You don't have to write much, just a brief appreciation of the book, and a rating of one to five stars. Of course, in the interests of balance I should mention that you can also write a review if you didn't enjoy the book - but I hope there will be fewer of these! Thank you.

The Leys School is an independent school in Cambridge, founded in the 19th century by the Methodist Church. Its grounds are extensive and its red-brick buildings are handsome. It has an air of being a safe haven of learning, an atmosphere it shares with the colleges of the University. Notable alumni include the author J G Ballard, the journalist Martin Bell, tennis star Jamie Murray and assorted members of the Tongan royal family. Another former pupil was the author James Hilton, whose book Goodbye Mr Chips was made into a film starring Peter O'Toole. It tells the story of a teacher at an independent school in the Fens, presumably based on the Leys. The Leys School, Cambridge From 1953 to 1980 the music master at the Leys School was Kenneth Naylor. Naylor was born in Sunderland but educated in Bath at Kingswood School, before going on to read music at Magdalene College, Cambridge. He was the composer of a number of works, but for our purposes the most significant of the...

At long last my book O Little Town is available. To order your copy simply click on the button below. I hope you enjoy it. I would be glad to hear any comments you have.

A while back I started to write about hymn-tunes that are named after Sussex place-names. Having been briefly diverted by an expedition to Suffolk and Essex, I am now back home and ready to think again about the tunes that grew near where I live. The first instalment of my post on Sussex hymn-tunes  focused mainly on tunes that Ralph Vaughan Williams collected from Harriet and Peter Verrall in Monks Gate, just outside Horsham. Vaughan Williams lived not far away, in Surrey, and many of the folk-songs that he adapted for use as hymn-tunes were collected in Sussex. So if you will indulge me, I will stay with RVW in this entry too. I live in Warnham, a village just outside Horsham, diametrically opposite from Monks Gate. There is a hymn-tune called WARNHAM, but only because I wrote it myself. It was my entry for a competition run by the Royal School of Church Music to mark the 150th anniversary of the publication of Hymns Ancient & Modern . The competition challenged composer...

My last post was entitled Sussex hymn-tunes - Part I , implying that there would at the very least be a Part II. And so there will be, in due course. But today I would like to write about East Anglia. I realise that East Anglia is not in the north, and is notoriously unhilly. But the title of the present entry does have a point, which we will come to by and by. Recently I had the pleasure of attending a concert at Snape Maltings given by the Suffolk Philharmonic Orchestra , who gave a wonderful rendition of the Prelude and Liebestod from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde , Brahms' Symphony no 4, and Richard Strauss's Four Last Songs (sung by Helena Dix , who stepped in at the last minute to cover for Susan Gritton, and produced a sublime, ravishing performance). This is of course Benjamin Britten country. As far as I'm aware Britten did not contribute to hymnody in any way (unless you count his arrangement of the National Anthem, which is sometimes heard at the Last...

I am not a native of Sussex but I have lived here for about eighteen years now, which is longer than I spent in the town in Kent where I grew up. So for me, Sussex is now very much home. I have been delighted to discover that my researches into hymn-tunes have led me to many 'little towns' that are only a few miles from my doorstep. Many of the tunes named after Sussex places owe their titles to Ralph Vaughan Williams. In December of 1903 Vaughan Williams had heard a Mr Pottipher, of Brentwood in Essex, singing the folk-song Bushes and Briars ; when he heard it, he felt it was something he had known all his life. From then on he became an enthusiastic collector of folk-songs, working with Cecil Sharp, Lucy Broadwood, George Butterworth and others to preserve the musical heritage of the country. Around this time, in 1904, he was approached by the Rev Percy Dearmer and asked to become music editor of a new hymn-book. This eventually became The English Hymnal , now a classic o...

As a former boss of mine used to say, there's a time and a place for spontaneity. My visit to Down Ampney wasn't planned: I had been in Droitwich (in Elgar country) for a family gathering, and a look at the map showed me that with only a slight detour I would be able to pass through Down Ampney, birthplace of Ralph Vaughan Williams. I seized the day. It was June, only a few days from the solstice. Not a scorching hot day, but warm and mostly sunny. Almost as soon as you enter the village of Down Ampney there is a sign beckoning you towards the historic church. It is down quite a long track, set amid fields where sheep were grazing beneath green trees. Peter Warlock infamously (and inaccurately) described Vaughan Williams’ music as ‘just a little too much like a cow looking over a gate'; and here in Down Ampney it is easy to imagine where that facet of his rich musical personality came from. All Saints Church, Down Ampney, Gloucestershire Pronunciation and punct...

I've made a start at mapping the places that have hymns named after them. This is nowhere near comprehensive, and even the places I have included don't all (yet) have full information. But it's a start. Click on the dots to find out more about the place and the hymn.

FOREST GREEN is the name of the tune sung (in the UK, at least) to O little town of Bethlehem . Since this is the carol from which I have taken the title for my book (and this blog) I thought I should look into it. The tune is a folk-song called The Ploughboy's Dream , which Ralph Vaughan Williams 'collected' in 1903. Vaughan Williams noted that the singer from whom he learnt this song, Mr Garman of Forest Green, was a native of Sussex but living in Surrey. Thanks to Mr Simon Coombs of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society , I have learnt that RVW collected this song at a place called Broadmoor in Surrey, and that he also heard songs sung by one Isaac Longhurst on the same occasion. Here's a map showing Broadmoor: View Larger Map I have tried to find out some more about Mr Garman of Forest Green. Vaughan Williams estimated his age to be about 60. By consulting the census records I have discovered the following: There is only one adult Mr Garman reco...

The memorial windows in Crimond Church commemorate Jessie Seymour Irvine, composer of the tune CRIMOND, set to the words of Psalm 23 ( The Lord's my shepherd ). But as I hinted in my last post , there is more to it than this simple statement.  The 23rd Psalm? For a start, the tune was not originally composed for these words. When it first appeared (in 1872 in a book called The Northern Psalter) the only words given were the following: Thou art the Way, the Truth, the Life: grant us that way to know, that truth to keep, that life to win, whose joys eternal flow. This is the last verse of a hymn that begins 'Thou art the Way, to thee alone from sin and death we flee’, with words by G W Doane. The fact that The Northern Psalter only printed the last verse with CRIMOND seems to suggest that these words were only given as a suggestion, and that choirs were free to use any texts that fitted the music. As the rhythm of the tune is in Common Metre, that coul...

I have recently returned from a sailing trip in Scotland aboard Goldfinch. My brother-in-law Bryan Davies and his friend Mike Neal are sailing her round Britain and I was lucky enough to be invited to join them for part of the trip. Towards the end of the month I will be re-joining them in Dublin for another stretch. ( Goldfinch has her own blog: see  http://goldfinchrounduk.blogspot.co.uk/ ) One of the ports we visited was Peterhead, on the east coast of Scotland. View Larger Map This gave me a perfect opportunity, because Peterhead is only a few miles away from Crimond. One of the most famous hymn-tunes of all is named CRIMOND, so it seemed a shame to miss the opportunity of visiting it. This tune is usually sung to the words of The Lord's my shepherd . Here's a link to an old recording of it, sung (slowly!) by the Glasgow Orpheus Choir: The bus journey from Peterhead takes only about half an hour. The countryside here is low-lying and green; the arch...