Revision Music

The sun is shining, the weather is warm, the leaves are springing on the bough… it must be exam season!  Here is a small compilation of music for those who are studying for exams at the moment… knowing how much music always helped me through mine.  To be listened to while working or while resting.  Hopefully these are all either relaxing or cheering or both!  And that they put the exams in perspective.  One of the things that music proves is that, in spite of how it seems in the thick of it, exams are a considerable way down the list of the most important things in the world…

Rachel Laurin: Concerto for vibraphone, marimba and strings, particularly the second movement:

Jacques Ibert: the first movement of his suite Escales (‘Ports of Call’): Rome – Palermo:

Ernest Tomlinson: ‘Serenade to a Wayward Miss’

Eric Coates: his ‘Four Centuries’ suite.  Have taken the liberty of linking straight to ‘Rhythm’… the twentieth century of course!

Can’t resist linking to the second movement of the ‘Three Elizabeths’ suite, ‘Springtime in Angus’, a musical portrait of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.  (Anything by Eric Coates will work wonders, really).

Gerald Finzi — Introit for Solo Violin & Small Orchestra — Op. 6 (Molto Sereno), which also forms the second movement of his Violin Concerto:

For something more contemporary, how about some music from the ‘Jednego Serca Jednego Ducha’ hymn-singing concerts in Rzeszów, Poland (which will take place this year on the 31 May)?  At the foot of this post I have compiled a list of the concerts that can be listened to on YouTube.

Here’s something up-to-the-minute, eight minutes long and quite peaceful…

Twoja miłość jak ciepły deszcz — Mietek Szcześniak

And here is a tune that may sound familiar:

Głoś imię Pana (Lobe den Herrn; Praise to the Lord, the Almighty)

Plenty more where they came from!

For more music see this post from last year.  Otherwise… GOOD LUCK in all exams!

Music in Time of Examination

Alas, the feast of Ascension, Oak Apple Day and G. K. Chesterton’s birthday are all probably rather overshadowed in the many minds for which this is a season of examinations.  They are necessary hardships, I suppose, but I must say it would be easier to believe this if it were possible to have confidence that the exam boards knew their subjects and checked their answers…

Anyway, I thought the least I could do in solidarity would be to compile a list of music (‘Desk Island Discs’?) either to lift or calm the spirits.  In one way they are only suggestions for listening in the throes of study or an interlude of relaxation, but I also mean them to show that, in the list of things that matter in life, exams are really quite low down.  Now it is true that a good exam should offer, in the very challenge it set, some promise of the reward of learning: truth, goodness and beauty, but many exams often fail to do this, to say the least, so here are some examples from the third category that I think really are worth knowing about:

Ernest Tomlinson: a general recommendation

The music of Ernest Tomlinson (1924-2015) more or less saved my finals: I wrote to him afterwards to say so, and he was kind enough to reply!  I have written elsewhere about his valiant efforts in defence of British light music since the 1960s.  Two CDs’ worth of his music can he heard here and here, but here are some suggestions for now:

Kielder Water:

Miranda:

Lakeside Idyll:

… the second movements of the Concerto for Five and the Silverthorn Suite, and both Suites of English Folk-Dances.

Then there is Percy Grainger: Zanzibar Boat Song for piano (six hands):

Molly on the Shore:

Along with Mock Morris, Spoon River and the Lincolnshire Posy (about which more here).

Ralph Vaughan Williams: Symphony no. 5, movement III (Romanza)

Ralph Vaughan Williams: Tuba concerto, movement II (also entitled Romanza)

Handel, of course; also jazz; and for those who like both Handel and jazz:

Gerald Finzi: Eclogue for piano and strings.

Herbert Howells’ Three Dances for violin and orchestra, written in 1915 when he was still a student at the Royal College of Music:

Germaine Tailleferre: Suite burlesque.

Any Bach keyboard concerto:

Maurice Duruflé: Quatre motets sur des thèmes grégoriens. For example:

I hope these will help anyone who comes across them, and that they are enough…  I’m probably not meant to put this many videos on a single web-page!  All the same, if anybody has any other suggestions, I’d be glad to hear them.