Simon Hewitt Jones - The Violin Blog

Mar

22

Tony Hewitt Jones - Seven Sea Poems

Filed Under Musical Works | 

This is the first of two guest blog posts by my grandmother, Anita Hewitt Jones, about my late Grandfather Tony Hewitt Jones (Composer, 1926 - 1989). Anita (Tony’s wife) was a cello teacher at Cheltenham Ladies’ College, and is herself a composer of educational chamber music (widely available through Edition Peters).

Seven Sea Poems by Tony Hewitt Jones is being performed by the English Baroque Choir conducted by Jeremy Jackson with the countertenor soloist Michael Chance in St John’s Smith Square on Saturday March 24th at 7.30pm. Also in the programme are the Scarlatti Stabat Mater and Bach Cantata 169 Got soll allein with the Brandenburg Sinfonia.

The Seven Sea Poems had their first performance in 1958 conducted by Bernard Rose for whom they were written, and Alfred Deller was the soloist. Since this performance in Oxford the work has proved to be much enjoyed by choral societies though it deserved to be heard more often. The string orchestra with oboe/cor anglais obbligato provides a descriptive background for the poems which include:-

1. Dreams of the Sea by W.H. Davies

2. Full Fathom Five - a round in eight parts

3. Part of Holy Peter with a rumba rhythm by John Masefield

4. Complaint of the absence of her lover by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

5. The Sailors Consolation by Charles Dibdin

6. Home Thoughts from the Sea by Robert Browning

7. A Wanderer’s Song by John Masefield

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