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Programme Note

The Lotus Eaters (Tennyson)
Evening (Hilda Dolittle)
Evangeline (Longfellow)
The Moth (Walter de la Mare)
Ode to a Nightingale (Keats)

Reflections of a Summer Night was commissioned for the 1978 Fishguard Festival and is dedicated to the John Davies Singers, who gave the first performance with their Orchestra at the Festival, conducted by John S. Davies. It is largely a meditative work, influenced by the memory of the summer of 1976 and the feeling of quiet and reflection induced by warm summer evenings. The five movements, which are performed without a break, are dominated by slow tempi, only the second and fourth songs moving quickly. The full choir is used only in the two outer movements, female voices by themselves only in
Evening and The Moth, with male voices alone in Evangeline. The work is scored for flute, oboe, bassoon, horn, percussion, harpsichord, and strings, who are muted throughout, giving, together with the harpsichord tone, a particularly heightened orchestral colouring.

© Copyright 2001 by John McCabe