The Spring Time Of The Year

Am sitting in choir sight reading (badly) through some Vaughan Williams English folk songs when suddenly it struck me - this stuff is amazing.

And there I was, 18 again, on the bus between Weston S Mare and Bristol with the West Country countryside jerking by, the hot sun streaming in through the windows, and thinking about how beautiful and not too different it would have looked to Vaughan Williams himself. And while I try and look at my wind band music for '17 come Sunday' I understand completely his obsession with folk song and how beautiful it can be in the right hands and I think how Vaughan Williams is even more evocative of a British summer of 100 years ago than Elgar to me (as much as I appreciate them both).

And I think about this as I'm doing a not-much-better job of picking my way through the complicated lines on the page here with one of the Leith Hill Choirs established by Vaughan Williams himself and I think 'maybe that's progress after all'.

The concert is on Saturday 15th June 730pm at St Martins Church in Epsom tickets and full programme available here