Fand IncWessex Press

Parts are available on request; please enquire.

Valse Musette has the date 8/4/1974 on the score and is for piano accordion (French musette registration), harp and strings. It is an evocation of the France, or perhaps the Paris, of Simenon’s Maigret. Similarly to Girl Friday it is in ternary form; however, in this piece the repeat of the first section is modified.

A recording of this work may be found on the CD, Carey Blyton – Film & Television Music (1/4).

Parts are available on request; please enquire.

Valse Musette has the date 8/4/1974 on the score and is for piano accordion (French musette registration), harp and strings. It is an evocation of the France, or perhaps the Paris, of Simenon’s Maigret. Similarly to Girl Friday it is in ternary form; however, in this piece the repeat of the first section is modified.

A recording of this work may be found on the CD, Carey Blyton – Film & Television Music (1/4).

Parts are available on request; please enquire.

At the end of the Girl Friday score the date 9/4/1974 is written, which therefore suggests that it was composed the day after Valse Musette. Or perhaps this is the date of the fair copy…

Whatever, the score is laid out for strings and piano and it has a most beguiling first subject which wraps itself around around a suavely ‘chic’ middle section; the music of Girl Friday is of its time and so the title seems totally apposite.

A recording of this work may be found on the CD, Carey Blyton – Film & Television Music (1/4).

Note: an arrangement of this piece for Easy Piano is also available.

Parts are available on request; please enquire.

At the end of the Girl Friday score the date 9/4/1974 is written, which therefore suggests that it was composed the day after Valse Musette. Or perhaps this is the date of the fair copy…

Whatever, the score is laid out for strings and piano and it has a most beguiling first subject which wraps itself around around a suavely ‘chic’ middle section; the music of Girl Friday is of its time and so the title seems totally apposite.

A recording of this work may be found on the CD, Carey Blyton – Film & Television Music (1/4).

Note: an arrangement of this piece for Easy Piano is also available.

Parts are available on request; please enquire.

PLEASE NOTE: A piano reduction is also available for purchase.

The ’Cello Concertino by Peter Thompson was written at the beginning of 2000, the short score being completed in February and the full score in April of 2001. The work is in three linked movements and the Concertino runs continuously. The second movement references music Thompson wrote at Cambridge Arts College in the early 1970s, specifically the Two Sonnets for Small Orchestra, which were prefaced by words of James Joyce: “Welladay! Welladay! For the winds of May! Love is unhappy when love is away.”

Parts are available on request; please enquire.

PLEASE NOTE: A piano reduction is also available for purchase.

The ’Cello Concertino by Peter Thompson was written at the beginning of 2000, the short score being completed in February and the full score in April of 2001. The work is in three linked movements and the Concertino runs continuously. The second movement references music Thompson wrote at Cambridge Arts College in the early 1970s, specifically the Two Sonnets for Small Orchestra, which were prefaced by words of James Joyce: “Welladay! Welladay! For the winds of May! Love is unhappy when love is away.”

PLEASE NOTE: The full orchestral score is also available for purchase.

The ’Cello Concertino by Peter Thompson was written at the beginning of 2000, the short score being completed in February and the full score in April of 2001. The work is in three linked movements and the Concertino runs continuously. The second movement references music Thompson wrote at Cambridge Arts College in the early 1970s, specifically the Two Sonnets for Small Orchestra, which were prefaced by words of James Joyce: “Welladay! Welladay! For the winds of May! Love is unhappy when love is away.”

This work was commissioned by the Gloucester Music Society and is dedicated to its Chairman, Christine Talbot-Cooper. It was subsequently premiered by Maria Marchant in the Ivor Gurney Hall, Gloucester on November 3rd, 2019. Stylistically contemporarily relevant, Soliloquy also has deep roots in an older tradition and is fabulously written by a composer whose own pianism is of the highest order.

Tydilidom, op. 52 no 4

I discovered the carol Tydilidom in the Penguin Book of Carols, Vol. II. I liked the way that that arrangement had been given a syncopated accompaniment, so that is what I did, and I enlarged the material for three voices. It was written initially as one of a group of four arrangements made for an all-male group called The Tallismen in 1980; I sang the alto part in those days, and we were based around Tewkesbury Abbey. The melody is passed between the voices.

Rocking Carol, op. 113 no 2

I’ve always liked the Rocking Carol, and when I took over as Director of Music at Sion School, Worthing, I only had a few boys in the choir at first, so this was composed for them to sing at a Christmas service in 1991.

—Gary Higginson, July 2023

This is a setting of lines from Coleridge Taylor’s beautiful poem, The Nightingale, and aims to capture the mystical and dream-like quality of the original. Alternating sections of stillness and movement are punctuated by bird-like sounds from the solo flute.