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(Ending revised and re-written 1998)

Approx 31 minutes. Very English in tradition.

2 flutes, 2oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, and (either) double bassoon or double bass. A kind of 'black' scherzo evoking the legend of Actaeon.

Due for premiere on August 2004

It is an educational work intended to allow al lstudents of whatever age range to come together in a grand finale.

The instruments constituting the modern symphony orchestra: strings, wood-wind, brass and percussion, have become standardised throughout the civilised world wherever a symphony or opera house orchestra is to be found. Some instruments however, might be said to have had an especially close association with one particular culture, even to the extent of becoming the symbol of a country the Irish harp, the kantele of Finland, the balalaika of Russia, or gipsy fiddles-playing in Bohemia, the guitar1 although now universal in its appeal, has remained especially symbolic of the musical spirit, ihdeed the very soul of Spain. Its idiosyncratic system of tuning has even brought about a harmonic flavour that has become the most characteristic and recognisable sound of the music of Iberian culture.

Composers from other countries however, have long explored the abilities of the guitar? the universal qualities of baroque music, for example: but in essence it seems to exude most of all its essentia1ly Spanish culture and sound world. Its association with popular dance music of Spanish tradition, evoking associations of vivid colour, the sultry passions of a populace accustomed to living beneath the hot sun of high summer, Jealous rivalries and that sense of family honour said to be characteristic of the Latin races. The very sound of the instrument evokes all these sensations: its capriciousness; sulky, lonesome melancholy, its immense manic vitality and rhythmic verve. In its quieter moments it can also suggest dark, hidden secrets, only to be whispered furtively. Its soul sometimes seems possessed of an age-old symbolism as if a memory of the dark deeds of the Inquisition were still to be evoked.

Such is the opening of this concerto, marked? 'lamentoso". Indeed the movement is not unlike a musical discourse or inquisition in which the guitar is challenged by the sombre forces of the large orchestra. The second movement is a fugitive scherzo for guitar and wind instruments, pursued by the 'cellos and double basses. The third movement reflects, as it were on fate, with the solo instrument self-communing while in the background the strings makes comment much in the same way that they do in the slow movement of Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto. The finale allows the guitar a freer rein and with it a more outgoing sense of liberation.

Premiere July 1st 2000. Huddersfield Singers 125th Anniversary Concert, St Paul's Hall, Huddersfield

The Brontë sisters, Emily, Anne and Charlotte in addition to their novels wrote poetry, that of Emily being far superior to the poems of her sisters.
They collaborated in evoking the Land of the Gondals, a romantic childhood creation of their imagination. However, a more immediate - and plausible -source of the imagination was their lonely moorland environment. The aura of the bleak hills, in all seasons of the year were a constant source of fascination, delight, and indeed love of those wild places. This is expressed in the first of these settings, the poem by Anne: "Lines composed in a wood on a windy day" with its exhilaration and evocation of nature.
"Remembrance" by Emily Brontë is a longer and more introspective poem from the Gondal cycle of imaginative writings. Like her sister's poem, it too captures something of the imagery of the moorlands, and the spell it cast over them. However there is a deeper vein of philosophy and insight that has made it one of the more memorable of nineteenth century poetic creations.
"The North Wind" was written by Anne at the end of January 1838 and evokes, as does much of the sisters' nature poetry, the almost ecstatic fascination, amounting even to obsession, they felt for their native harsh and inhospitable moorland.
They all suffered from the climatic conditions; the chill, damp atmosphere insidiously claimed them in turn. However, the legacy of their imaginative insight into life, love and thwarted yearnings have for more than a century and a half captivated generations of us.
Like the Brontës, Arthur Butterworth has long been deeply influenced by the aura and spirit of the northern moorlands. In 1969 he was commissioned by the Arts Council of Great Britain to compose "The Night Wind, Op.38, a set of three poems by Emily Brontë, for the Trinidadian soprano, Miriam Nathaniel, a work first performed at the Calder Valley Festival of that year. Almost all his major orchestral works, notably the four symphonies and the suite for large orchestra "The Moors" Op. 26, contemplate this recurring theme of fascination for the remote moorlands of northern England.