Raymond Premru was for many years the principal Bass Trombone of London?s Philharmonia Orchestra as well as having been a member of the Philip Johnson Brass Ensemble an active jazz musician teacher and composer. He listed hisinfluences as Berg Prokofiev Bartok Ives jazz and Bach though what emerged from his sensibility is diatonic modernist and skillfully suited to whatever instrumentation he chose.The five movements which appear typeset in thisscore A Tale From Long Ago Blues March Of Knights And Castles Le Bateau Sur Léman and Petite March are sometimes performed as a shortened version of the Divertimento to great effect.

This consists of five short movements. They were written for the Sunday lunchtime magazine programme ‘Not Now I’m Listening’ and were first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 6 November 1977. The work was first performed in concert bythe Fires of London at the 1978 Edinburgh Festival.