| This programme uses readings from Thomas Hardy and contemporary sources to tell about the church bands, which his family belonged to at Stinsford. |
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Our programmes are continually improved, and different music may be substituted from time to time. |
Major Malley’s Reel is a traditional Irish reel. The air is in the Hardy MSS. Such MSS rarely give full harmonisations of dance tunes. We know from the few that exist that they were indeed played, probably mostly by ear, so Mike Bailey has arranged all the dance music in our programme.
O happy Day that fixed my Choice by Philip Doddridge (1701-51); tune: New Sabbath by Thomas Phillips of Bristol (1735-1807).
Psalm 135 paraphrased by Isaac Watts; tune Ringwood by Benjamin Cuzens of Portsmouth Common in his Portsmouth Harmony of 1802.
Magnificat from the Evening Service in E flat by William Jackson (1730-1803), organist of Exeter Cathedral from 1777. Jackson’s Te Deum in F is still sung at the Methodist Conference.
Psalm 53 New Version by Tate & Brady; tune Devizes by Isaac Tucker, this version from a Dorset MS.
Psalm 96 Old Version by Sternhold & Hopkins; tune Pentonville by William Marsh of Canterbury, published 1816. We use a harmonisation from the oral tradition of the Sheffield area.
Speed the Plough is a traditional dance and tune.
Dance Tune Suite: The Sheep-Shearing, The Ploughboy (by Shield) and The Fairy Dance.
I Sowed the Seeds of Love was collected by the Hammond brothers in Dorset about 1904. Our setting is by Mike Bailey.
A Canon of Four in One (4 part round.) The words are clearly a long metre form of verse 1 of Psalm 128, one of the wedding psalms. The round is in a MS from Bramley in Hampshire. The tune was written for other words by William Tans’ur (ca.1706-83).
Interval
Rejoice the glorious day is come, from our own MS, is typical of the carols sung when "going the rounds" as Hardy describes in Under the Greenwood Tree. We recognise the tune as the last part of a verse anthem written by Thomas Shoel of Montacute, Somerset, for Isaac Watts' Joy to the World.
While Shepherds Watch'd by Tate & Brady. Otford tune, used by the Hardy family, dates from 1746. Bethleham tune is from a MS used in Barton-in-Fabis near Nottingham in the 1840s.
The Nativity is a setting of Hark the herald Angels sing by Sir Charles Burney, No.88 in the Lock Hospital Collection of 1769, designed for female voices and instrumental bass.
Psalm 107 New Version by Tate & Brady; tune: New Poole by William Knapp (b. Wareham 30 May 1698, d. Poole 1768).
Anthem from Psalm 65 by William Cole (1737-1824): Verses 9-13 are often set in village collections because of the harvest references. Cole's setting of the prose Psalm, published in 1768, shows some nice word- painting. We have added an instrumental bass part to two of the duets. Competent country musicians might be expected to improvise such a part.
Soldiers’ Joy is a very widespread tune used for various dances of that name, ours being our own variant of one of them. The air is from the Hardy MSS.
God Save Great George Our King is in a setting used in the early 1800s. The words evolved and became popular during the reign of George III, 1760-1820, so at this time it had only ever been sung of and for him.
Rule Britannia from Alfred, 1740, by Dr. Thomas Arne (1710-1778), was used to stir up patriotism in his theatre audiences during the '45 Jacobite rebellion. Our setting ca.1815 is by Vincent Novello (1781-1861), organist at the Portuguese embassy chapel in London at the time, with Arne's introduction.