Conductor, Sir DAN GODFREY
GORDON BRYAN (pianoforte)
Relayed from
The Pavilion, Bournemouth ERNEST NEWMAN'S statement that no modern composer could write a Dead March led Brian Easdale to take up the challenge. This work is the outcome.
The music is not intended for any specific occasion, but is certainly meant for a ritual connected with death. It is in three sections. The first is the relentless march of death, introduced by strong drum beats and consisting mainly of a march-tune. The second is the mourning and striving against the omnipotence of death, expressed by a chromatic phrase on the English Horn and its development. The whole of this section is written on a horn monotone and a continuous cross-beat on the timpani. The third section is a recapitulation of the march-tune. THIS WORK is based on Manx Folk
Songs, four of which are here prominent. The first, ' The Good Old Way ', is an old and typical air written mostly in the Dorian mode. The second tune, which introduces the lively section of the work, is a reel, 'The Manx Fiddler'. Chaloner, writing in the middle of the seventeenth century, remarked that the Manx people were ' much addicted to the music of the Violyne, so that there is scarce a family in the Island, but more or less can play upon it, but, as they are ill composers, so are they bad players '. The third tune, ' Sweet water in the Common ', relates to the old practice of summoning a jury of twenty-four men from each of the parishes in the district where the dispute took place, to decide questions connected with water-courses, boundaries, etc. The last tune is a fine old hymn,
' The Harvest of the Sea ', sung by the fishermen as a song of thanksgiving after their safe return from the fishing grounds. (Continued overleaf)