Christopher Robin And The Spaniel Did It

Radio Record, Volume XII, Issue 31, 13 January 1939, Page 3

Christopher Robin And The Spaniel Did It

riow A. A. Milne Met Right Composer

PATE seemed destined to bring the author, A. A. Milne, and the composer, Harold Fraser-Simson, together. They were both members of the sume club, they lived opposite one another in Mallord Street, Chelsea. Possibly most important of all, Christopher Robin and Mr. Henry Woggins (Fraser-Simson’s very intelligent spaniel) became great friends.

Interest in A. A. Milne’s poems came years after Fraser-Simson’s spectacular successes with his musical plays, "The Maid of the Mountains" and "The Southern: Maid." Tt never occurred to the composer to suggest that his friend Milne’s poems should be set to music. But, after the publication of "When We Were Very Young," toward the end of 1924, letters began to pour in on Milne asking permission to set this or that piece to music. Some composers-one or two well known-went farther. They set some of the poems to music, and then asked permission to publish the songs. It was this which brought. Fraser-Simson on the scene. ’ Milne asked him to look through this manuscript music, but he declined, according to his rule, lest he might unintentionally get ideas from unpublished manuscripts. Milne then sought Fraser-Simson’s advice, about this new aspect of affairs which suddenly became quite a formidable one. Fraser-Simson told him that he thought the poems ought to be set by one person, because if Mrs. Smith, of Chicago, did one and Mr. Brown, of London, did another, and so on, they would always be quite separate songs, and consequently would never be worth anything, whereas if one person set them, they could be published collectively. The upshot of all this was that Milne asked Fraser-Simson to under- _ take the task, which he readily agreed to do, Most of the settings to the fourteen songs in the first volume "came to" Fraser-Simson in the evenings of a holiday in Scotland, after he had been out shooting all day. Some of them occurred in London while he was walking in the street. The strcet was the only

a place in which he found he could satisfactorily set "Lines and Squares." in order to get the proper lilt, Fraser-Simson did what every child does-he walked in the squares of the pavement avoiding the lines, Enormous success of the first book of songs naturally led to 1'-3 production of the second book, "Teddy Bear and Other Songs." Author and composer got fun out

of deciding upon suitable diree tions, instead of terms like "Allegra molto," etc., etc., they thoroughly enjoyed themselves concocting phrases like: "Not too fast, or Aunt Susan won’t hear all the words"; "Brightly (as befits a man with braces)"; "Timidly, with one eye on nurse"; and so on, Milne used to go over to Fraser Simson’s house to hear the songs after they were set, and Christopher Robin used to accompany his father. But Christopher Robin wasn’t particularly interested in those occasions, 1YA listeners will hear "When We Were Very Young" (FraserSimson), sung by Clement Q. Williams, the Australian baritone, on Saturday, January 21.