A Ministering Angel

By Sir Walter Scott

I have added a new post, A Ministering Angel. It is a short but oft-quoted passage from Marmion, a long narrative romance written by Walter Scott and published in 1808.

The title character of Marmion is far from a heroic figure. To win Clare, he first of all persuades his besotted mistress, the nun Constance, to help him forge papers to ruin the reputation of his hated rival, Sir Ralph de Wilton. His plot succeeds, and Ralph is disgraced and forced into exile. That, however, is only the beginning of Marmion’s perfidy.

This extract comes from the near the end of the poem. Events have conspired to bring Marmion and Clare to the battlefield of Flodden Edge in Northumberland, on September 9th, 1513, Marmion as an envoy of Henry VIII and the English, Clare under the protection of the Scots. Marmion is mortally wounded, and as he lies dying on the field he cries for water. The only person on hand to bring it to him is Clare.

Read

The music below is Sir Arthur Sullivan’s Overture to Marmion.

This is the music from the film Tom Brown’s School Days (1951), an adaptation of Thomas Hughes’s 1857 novel praised for its faithfulnes to the original book. It was directed by Gordon Parry, and starred (among other well-known names) John Howard Davies as Tom, Robert Newton as Dr Arnold, and John Forrest as the school bully Flashman.

The Overture is performed here by the BBC Concert Orchestra under Kenneth Alwyn, and was provided to YouTube by Naxos of America.

Elias Parish (1808-1849) was an English harpist who made a name for himself as a virtuoso performer and popular composer both here and abroad: some said that he was to the harp what Franz Liszt was to the piano. Parish took the stage-name Alvars for a tour of the Continent in 1828, in an attempt to sound more exotic. The video below is the second movement from his Concerto for Two Harps and Orchestra in D Minor, Op. 91, marked Andante.

The recording was provided to YouTube by The Orchard Enterprises.

This is ‘Hunt the Squirrel’, from the First Suite of English Folk Dances by Ernest Tomlinson (1924-2015), performed by Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra and conducted by the composer. The dance goes back at least to 1709, when it appeared in Playford’s Dancing Master.

The recording was provided to YouTube by Naxos of America.

In 1713 James Brydges (1673-1744), son of the 8th Baron Chandos, began building a magnificent residence named Cannons, at Little Stanmore, Middlesex. James was a great patron of the Arts, and in 1717-18 George Frideric Handel, composer-in-residence at Cannons, wrote eleven Anthems for performance at the house, known to this day as the Chandos Anthems. All of them are settings of verses from the Psalms.

The recording below is the opening movement of Anthem No. 9. The words come from Psalm 135, in a metrical and rhyming translation by Nahum Tate and Nicholas Brady, first published in 1696. Nahum Tate was a playwright and Poet Laureate, remembered chiefly today as the librettist for Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, and as the author of the popular Christmas carol While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night. Nicholas Brady was a poet and a Church of England clergyman.

O PRAISE the Lord with one consent,
And magnify his Name;
Let all the servants of the Lord
His worthy praise proclaim.

For the whole Psalm, see Psalm 135 (Tate and Brady).

The piece is performed here by The Sixteen, conducted by Harry Christophers, in a recording provided to YouTube by Naxos Digital Services.

This is the Finale from Gustav Holst’s St Paul's Suite, which was composed for the orchestra of St Paul’s School for Girls in 1912-13. It is subtitled ‘The Dargason’, the name of a seventeenth-century English dance. The speculation is often repeated that the word ‘dargason’ is borrowed from an Anglo-Saxon legend about a dwarf, though without any corroboration. Another well-known English tune also appears in this piece, ‘Greensleeves’. A ‘broadside ballad’ called Greensleeves was registered in September 1580 by Richard Jones.

It is performed here by the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Christopher Hogwood, in a recording provided to YouTube by Universal Music Group.