Philip Lane: Wassail Dances for orchestra (1973)

Philip Lane (b. 1950) can always be relied upon to come up with some spirited music for any occasion. In this case these three Wassail Dances provide appropriately seasonal fare. They were composed early on in his career in 1973. They were written specifically for the Gloucestershire Youth Orchestra and their then conductor Tony Hewitt-Jones who gave the premiere in 1973. I was unable to find an exact date and venue.

‘Wassail’ is an ancient toast meaning something like ‘Good health!’ to mankind and livestock.  Mulled cider and beer was drunk as part of these festivities, often held on the Twelfth Night of Christmas. The tradition of Wassailing is still observed in parts of England to this day. However, it has been largely superseded by Carolling.

As the work's title suggests, these Wassail Dances are based on old drinking songs once popular in the counties of Somerset, Yorkshire and Gloucestershire.  The composer has explained that all three dances ‘take their theme and stretch it to its rhythmic and harmonic limits, within given parameters.’

The opening ‘vivace’ is ‘bucolic’ in mood and relies heavily on colourful orchestration for its jovial effect.  It is based on the Somerset Wassail:

Wassail and wassail all over the town

The cup it is white and the ale it is brown

The cup it is made of the good ashen tree

And so is the malt of the best barley

For its your wassail and its our wassail

And its joy be to you and a jolly wassail

The tune is likely to have been derived from the New Oxford Book of Carols, no.158.

Strangely, the middle movement, an ‘andantino’, is defined by a certain hardness of tone that ‘reflects the harsh landscape of its northern origins.’ The tune used here is ‘Here we come a Wassailing’.  It is alleged that both the words and the original tune were devised, collected or composed around 1850.

We've been a-while a-wandering

Amongst the leaves so green.

But now we come a wassailing

So plainly to be seen,

For its Christmas time, when we travel far and near;

May God bless you and send you a happy New Year.

The finale (vivace) is a lively, boisterous piece that is put through some imaginative twists and turns. It is probably based on the Gloucestershire Wassail:

Wassail! wassail! all over the town,

Our toast it is white and our ale it is brown;

Our bowl it is made of the white maple tree;

With the wassailing bowl, we'll drink to thee.

Once again, the orchestration is particularly impressive with brass (muted and unmuted) and vast amounts of percussion adding to the effect. It was later reworked as the fifth number of the composer’s Cotswold Dances. 

The Wassail Dances received their first broadcast performance on 11 December 1985 during BBC Radio 3 during a concert played by the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Ashley Lawrence. The Matinee Musicale also included Engelbert Humperdinck’s Overture: Hansel and Gretel, Tchaikovsky’s Bluebird pas de deux from Sleeping Beauty and arranged for chamber orchestra by Igor Stravinsky, Matyas Seiber’s Pastorale, a Sonata in C major for flute and piano by Gaetano Donizetti and finally, Felix Mendelssohn’s Overture: The Fair Melusine, op. 32. The flautist was Judith Hall.  

Some 17 years later the Wassail Dances were recorded on the Naxos record label (8.557099) played by the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Gavin Sutherland. Other works on this album included Victor Hely-Hutchinson’s Carol Symphony, Bryan Kelly’s Improvisation on Christmas Carols and Patrick Standford’s A Christmas Carol Symphony.

Unfortunately, the Wassail Dances have not been uploaded to YouTube. However, they can be heard on Spotify or the Naxos Music Library (accounts needed), They are well worth exploring.

Philip Lane was born in Cheltenham in 1950 which is at the north-western corner of the Cotswolds. Lane’s musical achievement is considerable; however, he is probably best known for his ‘light’ music and his major contribution to the reconstruction of lost film-scores.

Philip Lane: Lyric Dances (2007)

I listened the other day to Philip Lane’s delightful Lyric Dances. These were composed in 2007 for the following year’s English Music Festival (EMF). The liner notes explain that they are orchestral versions of several songs composed for ‘upper voices.’ These [probably] included Some Rhymes of Lewis Carrol (2003) and Four Shakespeare Lyrics (1998). I do wish that Lane had been a little more forthcoming in providing a list of songs transcribed. However, it would be possible to work them out from the respective vocal scores. I have not done this.

The Dances were arranged in ‘homage’ to Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, whose ‘Little Suite’ featured orchestral arrangements of children’s songs.

The Lyric Dances were first performed on Tuesday, 27 May 2008 at Dorchester [on Thames] Abbey, in Oxfordshire during the final EMF concert. Other works included Matthew Curtis’s Festival Overture, Paul Carr’s Concerto for oboe and string orchestra and Cecilia McDowall’s ‘The Skies in their Magnificence’ which was a setting of Thomas Traherne for double choir. After the interval, the audience heard Ronald Corp’s ‘Jubilate’, the present work by Lane and David Owen Norris’s Piano Concerto in C. The Southern Sinfonia was conducted by Corp.

It is important to realise that these dances are related to each other in mood and tone. None of them are practical as ‘standalone’ pieces. The composer has suggested that that they be offered as a unit.  The Lyric Dances explore several moods – from inquisitive, sombre, joyful, dramatic, to frivolous.

The first dance is a delightfully wayward tempo di valse. It is the only ‘dance’ that is named as such. In the oh-too-brief programme note written for the work’s premiere, Lane writes that the second dance began life as a setting of Shakespeare’s ‘Come Away Death.’ It is a thoughtful piece that reflects the lost love of the jester Feste from Twelfth Night.  The third dance is a pastoral ‘andante’, that pitches French horn and woodwind into creating a seductive landscape.

There is a pensive beauty about the ‘adagio sostenuto’. Lane makes use of a gorgeous tune on strings and then woodwind. Magical use is made of the ‘Mark tree’ percussion instrument which provides delicate chime-like sounds, especially as rising and falling glissandi. The final dance, ‘allegro moderato’ is rhythmic in its outer section, with a few quieter moments in the ‘trio’ section.

Philp Lane’s Lyric Dances were released on Dutton Epoch CDLX 7283 in 2009. It was reviewed on MusicWeb International by Gary Higginson (12 May 2012) who commented that ‘Philip Lane…likes dances. He’s probably good fun at a party! His Cotswold Dances are well known (ASV CD WHL 2126). His Lyric Dances fall into five sections; book-ended by faster ones. The first is the only dance named - a Waltz. The fourth is an absolutely gorgeous Adagio sostenuto…’

Paul A. Snook in Fanfare (September/October 2012) noted the ‘…gently accomplished blend of the tuneful and terpsichorean in [Lane’s] Lyric Dances Strangely I could find no review of this CD in The Gramophone magazine. 

Philip Lane: Cotswold Dances (1973)

For many listeners, the Cotswolds represent a ‘pastoral’ ideal for their music and poetry. It is easy to be transported into thoughts of some rural idyll that never really existed, except as wishful thinking. The names of the villages are evocative: Ducklington, Filkins & Broughton Poggs and Upper Swell. Rolling hills and field patterns and honey-coloured stone buildings seem to typify this area of outstanding natural beauty even in the first decades of the 21^st century.

Georgian Poets have presented its charms in verse. Poster painters have created idealised images.  English composers such as Herbert Howells and Ivor Gurney have found inspiration in this idyllic landscape. Howells great Piano Quartet in A minor (1916) was dedicated ‘to the hill at Chosen (Churchdown) and Ivor Gurney who knows it’. Gerald Finzi lived for a time in the beautiful town of Painswick. Holst wrote his Cotswold Symphony, an early and to a certain extent, atypical work, which was completed in 1900. C.W. Orr’s only orchestral tone poem was entitled A Cotswold Hill Tune.

The first thing to do is to remove the confusion over the title of Philip Lane’s Cotswold Dances. The present work dates from 1973: it is the earliest orchestral piece that the composer is prepared to acknowledge. However, in 1978 Lane composed his Suite of Cotswold Dances. The two works are unrelated, except by title.

The liner notes for the Marco Polo recording of this work gives the necessary topographical information for each dance. 

The first movement or dance is entitled Seven Springs and evokes the source of the River Thames. It is easy to hear the gurgling, purling streams and to imagine the gentle, almost intimate, start of a long, watery journey to the river’s mouth at Southend - presided over by Father Thames himself. Malcolm Arnold is never far away in these pages. It is a beautiful piece. Badminton House which is renowned for the horse trials, has a touch of the ‘archaic’ in its mood, perhaps acknowledging my lord, the Duke of Beaufort’s largely eighteenth-century house. The clip-clopping of horses can be heard as well as echoes of a stately dance. A fine confection. The third movement, is Pittville Park which is in Cheltenham close to Gustav Holst’s birthplace and the famous Pump Room. The liner notes recall that Lane had many childhood walks there with ‘varying degrees of success in catching newts…in the central lake’. The music is restrained and oddly melancholic. The penultimate dance describes Cleeve Hill which dominates Cheltenham. This 1083ft hill has wide ranging views towards Exmoor in the south-west, The Malverns in the north and the Sugar Loaf Mountain in Wales. The music that Lane has created for this piece is misty and deliberately unfocussed. There is an eerie mood to this dance that reflects the adjacent ancient burial site at Belas Knap. However, all this introspection is blown away by the final Wassail Dance. It is a delightfully wayward piece that suggests Morris men, village greens and the spirit of the Festive Season. Some of the material of the Dances was culled from the composer’s student ‘notebooks’.

Andrew Lamb reviewing the Dances in The Gramophone (May 2002) noted these ‘attractive works from Lane’s own part of the country that makes a very worthwhile addition to the range of English regional dances.’ He concludes his review by suggesting that Lane’s music ‘is expertly written and has an easy-going charm that makes it well worth getting to know.’ 

Paul Snook writing in Fanfare (November 2002) states that the early Cotswold Dances, with their marvellously nostalgic melodies, borrow a leaf from Malcolm Arnold's book[s] of dance suites.’

Hubert Culot (MusicWeb International April 2002) wrote that The Cotswold Dances ‘are more in the nature of gently nostalgic vignettes, though the beautiful Cleeve Idyll really is a small-scale tone-poem, than [a] real dance movements. The last movement Wassail Song is a colourful, unidiomatic arrangement of the well-known carol’.

Philip Lane was born in Cheltenham in 1950 which is at the north-western corner of the Cotswolds. Lane’s musical achievement is considerable, however he is probably best known for his ‘light’ music and his major contribution to the reconstruction of lost film-scores.

Philip Lane’s Cotswold Dances were released on Marco Polo 8.225185. They are available as CD or download. 

Philip Lane: Three Christmas Pictures

Philip Lane’s charming Three Christmas Pictures is my seasonal discovery (so far) of 2011. I have had the Marco Polo CD in my collection for a wee while, but only recently got round to listening to it. This work is a little gem.

There are three contrasting movements: - ‘Sleigh bell Serenade’, ‘Starlight Lullaby’ and ‘Christmas Eve Waltz’.  The first movement would seem to be the most popular – in fact Naxos claim that is has been performed all over Britain, and on every inhabited continent. Perhaps someone has even got this track loaded on their iPod in the Antarctic!
It was first recorded in Australia in 1986. It was first performed by Ron Goodwin and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra during Christmas 1981. A number of years later words were added to produce a choral version. The work is scored for full orchestra with a vast array of percussion – including Chinese blocks, whip, tubular bells and the inevitable sleigh bells. The entire piece lasts for about 10 minutes. 

The opening movement takes it place alongside Fred. Delius’ Sleigh Ride, Prokofiev’s Troika and Leroy Anderson’s Sleigh Ride. It is a perfect evocation of a journey we would all like to make –on an evening through the forests when the snow was deep and crisp and even. 
The second movement, the Starlight Lullaby is a truly beautiful miniature. This music conjures images of both the baby Jesus and excited children desperately trying to get off to sleep on Christmas Eve before Santa Claus makes his special deliveries! In spite of the nod to Henry Mancini’s Moon River, this is a well worked out piece of music that deserves to be heard alongside the more famous first movement.
The final impression is the lovely Christmas Eve Waltz. I guess this evokes a time and a place long gone – if it ever really existed except in the mind of Charles Dickens. However this particular waltz is probably from the 1950’s. It is a perfect pastiche of the light music genre – and that is not a criticism.

It would be nice of Classic FM picked up on this piece for their Christmas playlists. It certainly takes its place amongst the other seasonal pieces that I mentioned above. It would also be good for organiser of Carol Concerts to include this work as a purely orchestral item to balance the singing.
The Three Christmas Pictures are available on Marco Polo 8.225185 alongside other pieces by the composer.

Philip Lane: Prestbury Park for orchestra

Prestbury Park is a heady mix of horses, music and countryside. This delightful piece originated as a brass band work some 35 years ago. It paints a musical portrait of Cheltenham Racecourse on any typical race day, although the mood does tend to suggest a summer’s day and picnics. John Quinn on MusicWeb International has suggested that anyone who has 'braved the crowds there, particularly on Gold Cup day will recognise the hustle and bustle of large numbers of people out for a good time.’

Like much so-called light music this work could be used as a soundtrack for a variety of pictorial images including holidays, trains and a ramble in the Gloucestershire countryside. However the composer does give the game away by including an ‘orchestral impersonation of a neighing filly right at the end of the work. And also look out for the whip cracks too.

In many ways Prestbury Park epitomises so much that is good about the genre. The main melody is both catchy and at times a little wistful. The instrumentation is superbly done and the piece is a satisfying whole. The piece is well summed up the American Record Review writer Haldeman who has written that ‘The music can stand alongside almost anything of its type: it has lovely melodies, incessant charm, and moments of incidental but sincere beauty...’

Philip Lane’s Prestbury Park can be heard on Marco Polo 8.225185