In 1971 Carey Blyton made an arrangement for choir (SSATBB) of The Mistletoe Bough (op. 61a) which was subsequently recorded by Canzonetta and Jennifer Partridge (piano) on The Choral Music of Carey Blyton. Amongst his papers in the studio where he worked (known as ‘The Scout Hut’), I recently came across The Ballad of Lady Maynard and Dudin Brown, this an apparently new choral work. A little research enabled me to untangle its origins. Clearly, at some point, Carey Blyton decided to ‘arrange’ his arrangement of this well-known ballad, by composing new words and presenting them as a newly collected folksong. Perhaps the reference to mistletoe, with its Christmas kissing subtext, amusingly prompted a train of thought. This is of course speculation, but whatever initiated it, the ruse is so obvious that it was surely not intended to deceive! However, the ‘new’ song would make a welcome ‘tongue-in-cheek’ filler to any choral programme and so Fand Music Press is delighted to present it to a wider public.
