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The Snowman: Animated adventure, based on Raymond Briggs' festive tale. The Snowman airs on 4seven HD at 4:20 AM, Saturday 23 December. Animated adventure, based on Raymond Briggs' festive tale
This edition of Brass, Reeds, and Percussion, features Christmas wind band music, both secular and religious. One of the featured tunes is \“Greensleeves,\” probably the oldest song that musicologists have been able to identify. You will also hear a Christmas song that holds the record for taking the longest for a recording to make it to the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. But since it is still Advent, Brass, Reeds, and Percussion opens with two Advent hymns. The words for the first hymn, \“Lo, He Comes in Clouds Descending,\” were written by John Wesley, the founder of Methodism; the music was written by Martin Madan, a lawyer converted to Methodism upon hearing one of Wesley’s sermons.
It has become a Christmas rite-of-passage for generations of families, as familiar to the festive season as mince pies. Howard Blake tells Roisin O’Connor why he didn’t want Aled Jones singing in the 1982 animation of ‘The Snowman’, and how ‘Walking in the Air’ almost never made the cut