PRE-CONCERT TALK
Promises from a Postcard: a symphony for Kerry
BARRY MARSH
DRINKS RECEPTION
for EMF Friends and Vice-Presidents
PARRY: Jerusalem
CURTIS: Festival Overture
IRELAND: Legend for Piano and Orchestra
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Fantasia for Piano and Orchestra
WORLD PREMIÈRE PERFORMANCE
MOERAN / YATES: Symphony no.2
WORLD PREMIÈRE PERFORMANCE
BBC CONCERT ORCHESTRA
MARTIN YATES | conductor
MARK BEBBINGTON | piano
PICKARD: Insomnia for Violin and Piano
SACHEVERELL COKE: Sonata no.1 in D minor for Violin and Piano
WORLD PREMIÈRE PERFORMANCE
SAINSBURY: Soliloquy for solo violin
CARR: Now Comes Beauty
WORLD PREMIÈRE OF VIOLIN-AND-PIANO VERSION
ELGAR: Sonata for Violin and Piano, op.82
RUPERT MARSHALL-LUCK | violin
MATTHEW RICKARD | piano
FINZI: Songs to poems by Christina Rossetti, op.1
CARR: Holding the Stars
GARDNER: Seven Songs, op.36
IRELAND: Eight Songs for Upper Voices
CARR: Now Comes Beauty
BOUGHTON: Sir Galahad, op.1
SYRED CONSORT
BEN PALMER | conductor
PRE-CONCERT TALK
“What’s going to happen at the end of Act I?”: Piper and Britten at work
SUE PARKER
GARLANDS FOR THE TWO ELIZABETHS
ANON.: Allegra, Anglia!
MORLEY: Hard by a crystal fountain
BERKELEY: Spring at this hour
BENNET: All creatures now are merry minded
BENNET: Weep, O mine eyes
TIPPETT: Dance, clarion air
GIBBONS: Dainty fine bird
HOWELLS: Inheritance
EAST: Hence, stars, too dim of light
RUBBRA: Salutation
BRITTEN: Choral Dances from Gloriana
BRITTEN: Hymn to St Cecilia
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Silence and Music
WEELKES: As Vesta was from Latmos Hill descending
BLISS: Aubade for Coronation Morning
MORLEY: Leave, alas this tormenting
FINZI: White-flowering days
BRITTEN: Five Flower Songs
JOYFUL COMPANY OF SINGERS
PETER BROADBENT | director
HARDY PERENNIALS
Favourite music, songs, stories and poems from the works of Thomas Hardy and the Dorset tradition
Dives and Lazarus
The Persian Dance and The Waterloo Dance
The Musical Lovers; The Soldier’s Joy; The Fairy Dance; and The girl I left behind me
The seeds of love
Winterbourne Tune (WILLIAM KNAPP: New Church Melody, 1751)
This day the stag must die; Fred Williams’ Irish Jig; Money Musk; and Billy Boy
The Foggy Dew
Otford (MICHAEL BEESLY: A Collection of 20 New Psalm Tunes, 1746)
Derby; The Knifegrinder; and Ware out Mother
How happy’s the man
Enrico and Dribbles of Brandy
THE MELLSTOCK BAND
DAVE TOWNSEND | director; concertina; violin; voice
PETE COOPER | violin; voice
PHILIP HUMPHRIES | serpent; voice
CHARLES SPICER | oboes; voice
PEEL: Reveille
BRITTEN: Morning (This way to the tomb: II)
IRELAND: Summer Schemes (from Three Songs to Poems by Hardy)
PEEL: In summertime on Bredon
BRITTEN: Evening (This way to the tomb: I)
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: The Twilight People
GURNEY: Kathleen ni Houlihan
BRITTEN: Night (This way to the tomb: III)
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Procris (from Four Last Songs)
IRELAND: Dear, think now that I will forget you (from Three Songs to Poems by Hardy)
FINZI: To a Poet
IRELAND: If there were dreams to sell
GURNEY: The Ghost
FINZI: In the mind’s eye (from Before and after summer)
FINZI: The Clock of the Years
GURNEY: The Lake Isle of Innisfree
WORLD PREMIÈRE PERFORMANCE
PEEL: Old King Caraway
RODNEY BENNETT: Song of the Mad Prince (from Dream Songs)
GURNEY: Thou didst delight my eyes
HOWELLS: Peacock Pie
PHILIP LANCASTER | baritone
ANDREW PLANT | piano
YORK BOWEN: Suite no.1
RAWSTHORNE: The Creel
HOLST: The Planets
YORK 2
JOHN YORK and FIONA YORK | four hands; one piano
PRE-CONCERT TALK
John Ireland: the forgotten quite?
BRUCE PHILLIPS
PURCELL: King Arthur (instrumental music)
BRITTEN: The Sword in the Stone
ELGAR: Arthur (complete incidental music)
WORLD PREMIÈRE CONCERT PERFORMANCE
ORCHESTRA OF ST PAUL’S
BEN PALMER | conductor
SONGS OF ENCHANTMENT
SMITH: You spotted snakes
HAYDN: The Mermaid’s Song
STANFORD: The Fairy Lough
LARCHET: A stoirin ban (Sleep Song)
arr. PERRETT: A Garten Mother’s Lullaby
HEAD: The Fairies’ Dance
HEAD: The Singer
HEAD: The Fairy Tailor
STANFORD: La Belle Dame sans Merci
GIBBS: In the Faery Hills
QUILTER: Fairy Lullaby
BOUGHTON: Faery Song
arr. CALTHORPE: A Leprechaun
arr. KENNEDY-FRASER: A Fairy’s Love Song
arr. KENNEDY-FRASER: The lure of the fairy hill
BREWER: The Fairy Pipers
GIBBS: You spotted snakes
SPROSS: Will o’ the Wisp
CHARLOTTE DE ROTHSCHILD | soprano
DANIELLE PERRETT | harp
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Hymn-Tune Prelude on Song 13 by Orlando Gibbons
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: The Lake in the Mountains
GURNEY: Five Preludes
GURNEY arr. BANFIELD: Chorale Prelude on Rockingham
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS arr. VALLY LASKER: Job: A Masque for Dancing
IAIN BURNSIDE | piano
AVISON: Concerto in A, op.9 no.11
FARNABY arr. BANTOCK: Seven Pieces
BOUGHTON: Three Folk Dances
BRITTEN: Simple Symphony
DARKE: Fantasy in E minor
JENKINS: Pastorale and Allegro
PURCELL: Fairy Queen Suite
BOYCE: Symphony no.1
IRELAND: Concertino Pastorale
FISHER: Widecombe Fair: variations in the style of Paganini
CHAMBER ENSEMBLE OF LONDON
PETER FISHER | violin
PRE-CONCERT TALK
Delius: an Englishman abroad
ROGER BUCKLEY
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Overture: Henry V
FLETCHER: Labour and Love
ARNOLD: Little Suite no.2
BLISS: Kenilworth
IRELAND: A Downland Suite
ALWYN: The Moor of Venice
BANTOCK: Prometheus Unbound
BUTTERWORTH: A Dales Suite, op.24
HOWELLS: Pageantry
JAGUAR LAND ROVER BAND
DAVE LEA | conductor
BYRD: Haec Dies
WEELKES: Gloria in excelsis Deo
STANFORD: Beati quorum via
Trad. arr. GRAINGER: Brigg Fair
Trad. arr. LANGFORD: Bobby Shaftoe
Trad. arr. KNIGHT: Londonderry Air
Trad. arr. LAWSON: Swing Low
LENNON and McCARTNEY arr. RUNSWICK: Blackbird
BERLIN arr. PICKARD: Cheek to Cheek
SHERWIN and MASCHWITZ: A Nightingale sang in Berkeley Square
KERN and FIELDS arr. WATERS: The way you look tonight
RUTTER: Come live with me
RUTTER: It was a lover and his lass
THE SONGMEN
BRIDGE: Cello Sonata
VENABLES: Elegy
IRELAND: Cello Sonata
DELIUS: Cello Sonata
WALTON: Passacaglia for Solo Cello
BRITTEN: Cello Sonata
RICHARD JENKINSON | cello
BENJAMIN FRITH | piano
KIPLING SETTINGS
GERMAN: The big steamers
HUNT: We don’t want to fight
McGLENNON: Sons of the Sea
DAWSON: Boots
STUART: Soldiers of the Queen
GERMAN: Rolling down to Rio
SULLIVAN: The absent-minded beggar
SPEAKES: The road to Mandalay
DE KOVEN: Recessional
IRELAND: The Soldier
GERMAN: Has anyone seen my boy Jack?
ELGAR: The fringes of the Fleet
NOVELLO: Keep the home fires burning
COWARD: Mad dogs and Englishmen
TOM HIGGINS | director; piano
ELIZABETH TRAILL | soprano
ALEXANDER KNOX | baritone
RICHARD FAWKES | narrator
PRE-CONCERT TALK
“Too much of this political business”: Elgar, India and Empire
ANDREW NEILL
WARLOCK: Capriol Suite
ALWYN: Autumn Legend
DELIUS: Seven Danish Songs
DELIUS: Irmelin; Song before Sunrise
DELIUS: A Late Lark
PARRY: Symphony no.3
ESO
JOHN ANDREWS | conductor
ELENA XANTHOUDAKIS | soprano
Booking for the 2024 May EMF is now open to all. As always, discounts are available for residents local to the Festival’s home, Dorchester-on-Thames; and these special prices may be obtained by entering your postcode at the Box Office’s front page. To book your tickets, please follow this link.
We are delighted to announce the programme for the 2024 May EMF. This year, for the first time, all our events will be held in Dorchester-on-Thames, with the concerts taking place in the glorious surroundings of Dorchester Abbey; the talks in the historic Village Hall. The full programme, with details of venues, works and artists, may be seen on this page. Booking for Friends of the Festival will open in early March, with general booking opening two weeks later; tickets will be available by post or through our online Box Office.
We have recently introduced a new tier to our Friends’ Scheme for Corporate Friends — so, if you own, or help to run, a company or a similar organisation, and would like to enjoy the special benefits that this tier offers, please do consider joining at this level. For more details about our Friends’ Scheme, please follow this link for a description of the tiers and their benefits, together with information about how to join.