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I was commissioned in 1986 to write a suite of sea songs for a "Last Night of the Proms" style concert, for youth brass band, children's choir and adult chorus and audience participation. Obviously I tried to find less conventional material to use, rather than try to rewrite Henry Wood. As I looked through various possible items, a theme began to develop of nautical disasters, so I named the suite ironically as "Hearts of Plywood". It was all pretty light-hearted though, with some rollicking good tunes in it.
After an introduction referring to "Hearts of Oak", we have the first band item, a Euphonium solo - a setting of a traditional sea song called "'Twas in
This was followed by the children crying out for help, which I have represented by a few moments of chaos in the band here. Next comes the full chorus item, "Toll for the Brave", after a bridge passage based on "Down among the Dead Men". This tune is a march written by George Frederick Handel for Scipio (1725) and often known as "The March in Scipio" in the 18th century. The words were written by William Cowper in 1782 to commemorate the tragic loss of the ship the Royal George.
The Royal George was launched in 1756 and had a distinguished career in the Seven Years War. At the time of her sinking in 1782, she was the flagship of Admiral Richard Kempenfelt. Kempenfelt had been promoted Rear Admiral following his victory over a French convoy off Ushant in 1781. The ship sank while anchored off shore for repairs, with a loss of the Admiral and 800 men. I used only the first two verses' words and used my own harmonization.
Next comes the second item for solo band: a setting of a sea song called "The Mermaid", which tells of the hardships of the sailor's life - "while we jolly sailor boys were up, were up aloft, and the land lubbers lying down below" - before telling the tale of yet another shipwreck brought about by the intervention of a siren mermaid.
Finally we come to Rule Britannia, for both choirs and audience - I thought three verses would suffice:
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the Broad Atlantic". The lyrics tell the tale of an unfortunate shipmate who was washed overboard during the equinoctial gales and ended up married to a mermaid. The chorus words, however, affirm that Britannia rules the waves and that Britons "never, never, never shall be marr-eye-ed to a merm-eye-aid at the bottom of the deep blue sea." The forward reference here to the finale of the suite helps lend a unity to the proceedings. There is a brief reference to the Sailor's Hornpipe interpolated between the verses.
There is a reference to "What shall we do with the drunken sailor" in the bridge passage to the next item, which is for children's choir. It is adapted from a playground song. I needed something in the way of a chorus, in order to bring the stanzas to an end, as skipping songs run on continuously until someone falls over. I tried "We are are sailing on Alley-alley-oo" but it didn't have the sonority I wanted, so I moved the Alley, which is presumably the Manchester Ship Canal historically, into that location beloved of folk songs - the Lowlands Sea. Anyway, sinking in the Manky Ship Ditch would have been an inconvenience, but hardly a nautical disaster.
