Here We Come A-Wassailing (Concert Band with Optional Choir - Score and Parts) - Noble & Rutter

Here We Come A-wassailing (or Here We Come A-caroling) is an English traditional Christmas carol and New Year song, apparently composed c. 1850. The old English wassail song refers to 'wassailing', or singing carols door to door wishing good health, while the a- is an archaic intensifying prefix; compare A-Hunting We Will Go and lyrics to The Twelve Days of Christmas (e.g., Six geese a-laying). According to Readers Digest; the Christmas spirit often made the rich a little more generous than usual, and bands of beggars and orphans used to dance their way through the snowy streets of England, offering to sing good cheer and to tell good fortune if the householder would give them a drink from his wassail bowl or a penny or a pork pie or, let them stand for a few minutes beside the warmth of his hearth. This arrangement represents one in the Series of Band Arrangements compatible with David Willcocks' Carols for Choirs.

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