Music-theatre works-The poems which form the basis of this work were inspired by a miniature mechanical organ playing eight tunes once the property of George III. A scrap of paper sold with it explains that 'This Organ was George the Third for Birds to sing'.Peter Maxwell Davies then set these poems to music and devised them as a semi-theatrical work for Male Vocalist Piano Violin Cello Flute Clarinet and Percussion. The songs are to be understood as the King's monologue while listening to his birds perform and incorporate some sentences actually spoken by George III. The resulting work Eight Songs for a Mad King was completed in 1969 and stands as one of the mostdistinctive and arguably one of the most disturbing musical works from the twentieth century.This is the vocal score which includes a Piano accompaniment.

In this fifth volume of Warlock’s Choral works a set of three songs on poetry of Hilaire Belloc have been arranged for Chorus SATB and Piano as well as The Birds a fourth setting of Belloc originally written as a unison song for boys’ Voices. The Rich Cavalcade and The Spring of the Year were written and published in Warlock’s lifetime. Written in his maturity these songs show Warlock’s idiosyncratic Voice influenced by Elizabethan and folk music Delius and the music of his time.Composer writer and musical scholar Peter Warlock (Philip Heseltine) was active in the early decades of the twentieth century when he distinguished himself by his rediscovery and transcriptionof early English music his writing on Delius Gesualdo and other many other musicians and for his Choral works and songs among them the carol Bethlehem Down.

The task: to write a piece that could involve children as players singers and composers alongside a professional symphony or chamber orchestra. The solution: a peace-cry for the biosphere in which the collaborative nature of theenterprise is a metaphor for a wished-for human enlightenment to the ways of the natural world. Davies provides five musical elements and five ways of development and uses these to illustrate five branches of life on earth:water-plants trees fish birds and mammals (including man). There is a space for answers from children's instrumental groups and then a larger space in which the children can develop the given ideas perhaps with members of theorchestra. Davies returns as composer to depict through an excess of development creation turned sour. Finally everyone comes together with a unison hymn with orchestra and instrumental groups celebrating the turn of thetide.This work for young instrumentalists children's chorus and orchestra was commissioned by the Association of British Orchestras as the centrepiece of an education project which coincided with the implementation of theNational Curriculum for music in schools in England and Wales echoing similar developments in Scotland and Northern Ireland.Score. Duration c. 25mins.

Instrumentation : High voice - Pf Content : Brahms: Die Nachtigall(The Nightingale), Marienwürmchen (Ladybird),Sandmännchen (The Little Dustman),Vergebliches Ständchen (Fruitless),Die Henne (The Hen);Mozart: Wiegenlied, An Chloë;Mendelssohn: Gruss (Greeting);Schubert: An Sylvia (To Sylvia); Heidenröslein (The Wild Rose); Schumann: Schmetterling;Beethoven: Die Ehre Gottes (All Nature Sings God's Praises)

Introduction by Peter Pears CONTENTSThe Batchelor (C sharp - F sharp)The Birds (D - E flat)Captain Stratton's Fancy (C - F)Contented lover (E flat - A flat)Cricketers of Hambledon (B flat - F)Droll lover (B - E flat)Elore lo (C - F)Hey troly loly lo (C - F)Late summer (B - F sharp)Mr. Belloc’s Fancy (D - G (A))Piggesnie (D - G)Tom Tyler (D - F sharp (G))To the memory of a great singer (D flat - G)Set for the Associated Board Guildhall School and Trinity College Grade examinations.