ERNEST JOHN MOERAN

Moeran started work on the Violin Concerto in the autumn of 1937. It was finally finished and first performed by Arthur Catterall, to whom it was also dedicated, in 1942. The first performance was at the Proms on 8 July 1942 conducted by Sir Henry Wood. Moeran was strongly influenced by landscape, particularly the Norfolk fenlands. Although stimulated by the place, he presents the concerto as an abstract work and not in the least programmatic.

With the exception of a Serenade for orchestra, the Cello Concerto was Moeran’s last major work. The premiere performance took place in Dublin in November 1945, where it received great acclaim. It is in conventional sonata form and is one continuous paean for the cello, which is allowed to sing through the expert orchestration from start to finish.

Lonely Waters was probably finished in 1931, though the atmosphere it evokes takes us back to Moeran’s Norfolk boyhood, as well as his folk-song collecting in east Anglia during the 1920s. In an introductory note the composer tells us that this work is based on a fragment of a song still frequently heard on Saturday nights at certain inns in the Broads district of East Norfolk!

Whythorne’s Shadow is based not on folk song, but on an Elizabethan tune used in a part-song by Thomas Whythorne published in 1571.