The Wishing Tree was composed by prominent composer Joby Talbot in 2002 and was first performed in that year by the BBC and King's Singers. With text by Kathleen Jamie this particular arrangement forMixed Choir was made by the composer at the request of Hilary Summers. Joby Talbot has composed prolifically in a great variety of styles with perhaps his most famous works being for Film andTelevision. He has composed the score for the series 'The League of Gentlemen' as well as the films 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' 'Son of Rambow' and 'Penelope'. As an arranger he has worked with a large number ofmodern pop musicians. In 2002 he composer this The Wishing Tree for part of the Queen's Golden Jubilee to great positive acclaim. 

Ballade by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe-During the summer of 1799 Goethe wrote his ballad ?Die erste Walpurgisnacht ? and asked his friend Carl Friedrich Zelter to set the work to music. Zelter however felt unable to do this and so Goethe?s wish was only realised thirty years later by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.The ?heavenly words? of the pagan ballads had impressed the composer so much after a visit to Weimar that he was inspired to set them to music. In 1832 the composition took shape and was performed a year later in the Sing- Akademie in Berlin.Mendelssohn was however unhappy with the first version of the work and held it back until he decided on a radical revision ofthe work ten years after its premiere. Die ?erste Walpurgisnacht? was first performed in 1843 in Leipzig in the presence of Robert Schumann and Hector Berlioz in the form in which the work is still performed today. The publication of this edition by John Michael Cooper Associate Professor of Music History at the University of North Texas (Denton) makes the work available in an Urtext edition for the first time in time for the 200th anniversary of the composer?s birth. The edition reflects the latest state of research and the volume includes a Critical Commentary.- One of Mendelssohn?s most important secular works in an edition reflecting the latest research findings.- Bärenreiter Urtext for the Mendelssohn anniversary year 2009.- Critical Commentary (Eng)- Full score (BA9072) and vocal score (BA9072-90) for sale; performance material (BA9072-72) available for hire.