Day 31: The Very Best of English Song!
Picture coming soon!
The selection I listened to included:
Tom Bowling; Home Sweet Home; Come into the Garden, Maud;
The Foggy Foggy Dew; The Plough Boy and Popular Song.
You’ll know the first two as these are regularly played at
the Last Night of the Proms (and I’ve heard a few of those lately, courtesy of
Hathern Band). The third, Come into the Garden, Maud, was a piece I first heard
when I was in my early teens. It haunted me for years and years, and it wasn’t
until I was about 40 that I finally found a copy of the sheet music, and was
then able to track down a recording of it. I don’t know why, but the closest I
kept coming to was In a Monastery Garden – but I’ve no idea why! Absolutely
fantastic piece, and one I can actually play on the piano (as long as I miss
out the octave stretches!) Robert Tear is the singer on all the above.
Popular Song is taken from Walton’s Façade Suite and is
beautifully performed on this recording by Michael Flanders, as in Flanders andSwann fame.
Fabulous stuff!
