Britten wrote Irish Reel in 1936 as the title music for a documentary film entitled 'Around the Village Green'. It is a bravura piece exhibiting all the energy and strong orchestral colours typical of the composer at that time and makes good use of a traditional reel tune with the evocative title'The Bottom of the Punch Bowl'.Guy Woolfenden's transcription for symphonic wind band skilfully captures all the fun and sparkle of this ebullient score.

Purcell composed this brilliant theme as incidental music for his work Abdelazar (1693). Three centuries later Benjamin Britten used it in his symphonic work The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra (with the subtitle Variation and Fugue on a theme of Purcell) and it became famous. This arrangement by Jan de Haan remains faithful to Britten’s intentions featuring the different tembres of the instruments. Rondo entrances the listener with its varied tone colours and its solemn grandeur.