Know Thy Kings and Queens

Instrumentation

Mezzo soprano
1
Piano
1

Additional Information

for medium voice and piano

words: anonymous



Commissioned by the NMC Songbook



First performance Susan Bickley and Iain Burnside

Kings Place, London WC1, 15 April 2009

 

programme note



As a half-Croat Brit currently living in Beijing, the NMC remit to write a song redolent of Britain proved a tough one. No royalist I, for some perverse reason I found myself half-remembering a history mnemonic from my mother that ordered our kings and queens into doggerel. Many versions abound, so I gingered this one up. The music is a stately passacaglia that gradually quickens and speeds up, redolent of the increasing rate of human endeavour and the switchback of history. Our own national anthem lurks in there too, subject to polite and not-quite-treasonable variation.



 

Willie, Willie, Harry, Ste

Harry, Dick, John, Harry three;

One two three Neds, Richard two,

Harrys four five six, ....then who?

Edwards four five, Dick the bad,

Harrys (twain), Ned (the lad);

Mary, Bessie, James the vain,

Charlie, Charlie, James again

Will and Mary, Anna Gloria,

Georges four, then Will, Victoria;

Then came Edward, late in life,

Stiff George and Eddie with THAT wife

Gentle George and Lillibet,

Good old Charlie, but not just yet.

 

Tags

Details

Year
Publisher
Composer
Minutes
2

Recordings

Date published
2009
Date recorded
2009
Performers
Susan Bickley and Iain Burnside
Record company
NMC
Title
NMC Songbook