Britten Thematic Catalogue
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It was originally assumed by Britten that Niles collected and arranged this song (see notes below). In his unpublished autobiography Niles records that he heard a girl sing a fragment of a folk melody, and he subsequently composed the song 'I wonder as I wander' based on this fragment. See John Jacob Niles, 'I wonder as I wander' (with an introduction by Dr Ron Pen) in A Kentucky Christmas, ed. George Ella Lyon (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2003), pp. 200-201.
Niles's song was originally published in Songs of the hill folk (Schirmer, 1934). Britten made his arrangement in the belief that the song was in the public domain; because of copyright difficulties that ensued the arrangement (which simply surrounds the unaccompanied tune with a prelude, postlude and three interludes by Britten) was not published or broadcast, though Britten and Pears continued to include it in their concert programmes up to September 1972 and Pears to the end of his performing career.