Harvest - a shout out for...

[Martin Cooke]

... Heathcote Statham's neat little Divertimento on 'Monkland.' 

I know... it's hardly the piece of the century but I have known this piece for over 50 years. Statham recorded it at Norwich on a little 45rpm EP along with a Handel Organ Concerto and the 'Giant Fugue.' Goodness knows why it made such an impression on me... the EP was an unexpected gift from a sister... she'd actually bought it because of the Organ Concerto which she knew - (this is back in about 1967) - and then of course the Tuba get a good outing... and 'Monkland' itself, is a a great little tune. It's published in the Harvest volume in the old green Novello 'seasonal' album series. The other lovely piece in this is the one by William Lloyd-Webber on a Harvest hymn that is no longer sung. 

[Rowland Wateridge]

“Fair waved the golden corn, in Canaan’s pleasant land” to the tune with the (recently topical) name ‘Holyrood’. Wakefield Cathedral choir have made a recording of the hymn on YouTube and there’s at least one recording of the tune played on a Hele organ in Cornwall.  

I haven’t checked current hymnals, but I think “Fair waved the golden corn“ is in AMR.  I don’t now recall the occasion, but I heard it sung at Evensong in Salisbury Cathedral, in the days of Richard Seal, to the tune ‘Sandys’.

[Dafydd y Garreg Wen]

Still sung hereabouts.

It’s in Ancient and Modern Revised but not among the general hymns, presumably because, although it references harvest, it’s not really about harvest (any more than “Abide with me” is about eventide in the literal sense).

Not that there’s anything inappropriate about singing the one at a harvest festival, or the other at evensong, I hasten to add - rather the opposite.