| 12751 | Folk Songs from Somerset |
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| Holst, Gustav 1874 - 1934 |  Score
 mp3 audio
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| Publisher: Goodmusic |
| Instrumentation: 2.2.2.2/2.2.3.0,timp,2 perc,str=4.4.3.4.2 |
| Duration: 9:00 |
| Comments: First published edition. Horns 3&4 double Horns 1&2 for added volume in some of the movements. Dicky of Taunton Dean, The Sweet Primeroses, The Trees they do Grow High, Sheep Shearing Song, The Little Turtle Dove, High Germany, The True Lovers’ Farewell, Bruton Town, The Sign of the Bonny Blue Bell and Let Bucks A-hunting Go. |
| Description: Holst wrote the “Folk Songs from Somerset” in 1906 (originally titled "New Selection of Songs of Somerset"). It was first performed at a concert on 3rd February 1906 at the Pump Room, Bath with Holst conducting the City of Bath Orchestra. The following year, Holst completely rewrote the work and it became “A Somerset Rhapsody” which is performed regularly today. Holst wrote on the front of the manuscript of the earlier work "Old X" tucked it away and then it was lost . . . . . until it turned up in 2015 in the archives of an orchestra in New Zealand! It is thought that it found its way to Tauranga in New Zealand via a flautist called Stanley Farnsworth who conducted an orchestra in the area in the 1960s. It is not known how he came to have it, or what his connection was with Holst. The manuscript is now in the "Holst Victorian House" museum, located in the house in Cheltenham where Holst was born. “Folk Songs from Somerset” published here for the first time, makes use of ten different folk songs: Dicky of Taunton Dean, The Sweet Primeroses, The Trees they do Grow High, Sheep Shearing Song, The Little Turtle Dove, High Germany, The True Lovers’ Farewell, Bruton Town, The Sign of the Bonny Blue Bell and Let Bucks A-hunting Go. (The re-written “A Somerset Rhapsody” only used three of these tunes.) |