In our little studio we teach violin, viola, cello and piano;
much from the Suzuki method. Typically, the bulk of our students are somewhere
in book one. “Long, Long Ago” is in book one for each of these instruments, so
it’s a rare day that I don’t hear this melody played at least once. A while
back the question of who’d written it came up, and I admitted I didn’t know.
The Suzuki books only cite T. H. Bayly. So I looked him up. Thomas Haynes Bayly
(1797-1839) was born in Bath. He was for a short time a popular poet, composer
and playwright, but “Long, Long Ago” is probably the only thing he wrote that
you’ve ever heard. The most interesting tidbit I dug up was this: a century
after Bayly’s death, Glenn Miller turned his sentimental tune into “Don’t Sit
Under the Apple Tree.” How did I hear this song daily for decades and not
notice that?
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