Four English Dances in the Olden Style...Cowen
Stately; Rustic; Graceful; Country
This is thoroughly happy music of the kind by which Sir Frederic Cowen is best known - to listeners. Eminently sound in workmanship - that goes without saying - these four Dances are all bright and tuneful, and each has its own grace and charm. The first is a 'Stately Dance' in a. moderate four in the bar; the second, a 'Rustic Dance,' is full of vigour, and at times even boisterous; the third trips along on dainty feet, in keeping with its name, 'Graceful Dance,' and in the fourth we return to the more heavy-footed dance of the country. There are two contrasted sections, the first sturdy and energetic, the second more sedate, as though the lads and lasses of the village took turns in dancing for us. But at the end the two figures combine to form a really boisterous close.