"Folk Song Wedding" for Clarinet Quartet by Solomons on Youtube

David Solomons has sent me Youtube links to a wonderful performance of his "A Folksong Wedding" given by the Fell clarinet quartet on June 21, 2009. The composer describes the works as follows :

The quartet is based on 5 British folksongs, one for each movement but all returning to give their final fling at the wedding in movement 5.

The first is "A keeper would a hunting go, and under his coat his carried a bow. . ." in which the accompanying saxes recite the mantra "run away, run away my deer!" as the tune progresses.

The second is a short and sweet arrangement of "My love is like a red red rose", a song often sung by my Dad as he washes the dishes! Funny what inspires you!

The third is based on the "Ballad of green broom", made famous by many composers over the years. The father gets his lazy son up out of bed to cut broom, this is only way he's going to get him out to earn money, and of course to meet girls!

The fourth is based on "Green grow the rushes oh!" and is a re-arrangement of my version for three voices which can be heard here

The fifth is based on Mhairi's wedding [also incorrectly referred to as Mairi's wedding], a lovely and simple melody from the island of Lewis which can (as I discovered today!) can accommodate all the other tunes in the wedding fling.

Make your own story up from the whole sequence!

The work is in three files :


Part 1


Part 2


Part 3

The work is available in our Clarinet Music Catalog. and also exists for Saxophone Quartet.