Conducted by J. B. Yorke
Handel's Air is a song of rejoicing and of praise to God for the preservation of a loved one:
Oh, had I Jubal's lyre,
Or Miriam's tuneful voice,
To sounds like his I would aspire,
In songs like hers rejoice.
My humble strains but faintly show
How much to Heav'n and thee I owe.
(Soloist: G. Merrit)
Rutland Boughton's Music Drama The Immortal Hour was produced in August, 1914, at the Summer Festival of the Glastonbury Festival School. Since then it has become one of the most popular of such works ever seen in England, having had more than one long run at London theatres.
The Faery Song is the haunting air sung by Midir, a Prince of the Faery folk, to Etain, a Princess from the same country, who has strayed among the humans. Midir at last lures Etain back to faeryland.
Graham Peel is a North Countryman (he was born near Manchester in 1877) who seems to take special pleasure in the things of nature. This song, from the Shropshire Lad cycle of Housman, is a universal favourite.
The singer thinks how he and his love would lie on Bredon Hill of a Sunday morning listening to the church bells pealing round the shires.
'Oh, peal upon our wedding', he said, and we will hear the chime',
But his love has died and left him, she 'went to church alone.'
The bells they sound on Bredon -
And still the steeples hum.
'Come all to church, good people.'
Oh, noisy bells, be dumb;
I hear you, I will come.
