Harold Lancebury (bass-baritone) recently retired Music Master, Holt’s School.

String quartet.

All songs are set in Lancebury’s room at the Bellevue Hotel, Sidmouth between August and December 1947.

Nunc Dimittis (Luke II) - August
Harvest Home (Alford)- September
Ode to Autumn (Keats)- October
November (Hood)- November
The Garden of Proserpine (Swinburne)- December

Additional text by the composer.

ONE.

Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word,

For mine eyes have seen thy salvation which thou hast prepared in the presence of all peoples,

A light for revelation to the gentiles

And for glory to thy people Israel.

At my last evensong at Holt’s they trotted out a Nunc setting I wrote just before the Great War. Wrote it for the school choir just after I joined – I’d almost forgotten about it. Then someone, Gilbert I suspect, had some of the chaps from the choir learn it behind my back. Touching, I suppose, but I have retired, not died.

Nunc Dimittis.

Feels like I have been dismissed.

Now, now, Pallas, old boy, none of that.

You’re over seventy and have had a jolly good innings at the school. Not to mention last month’s round of farewell dinners, speeches, concerts. A long and happy retirement to our dear old Music Master. Then off you trot to sunny Sidmouth, the late summer sun in your windows, seagulls in your ears and the aroma of Mrs Snellgrove’s rather fine poached dabs drifting up the stairs. All rather jolly.

TWO.

Come, ye thankful people, come.

Raise the song of Harvest home

All is safely gathered in.

Ere the winter storms begin.

God our Maker doth provide.

All our wants he hath supplied.

Come to God’s own temple, come

Raise the song of Harvest home

“I say, are you Mr Lancebury, the Music Master?”

“Well, I was”

“I say, our organist has lumbago. Could you possibly play at All Saints for Harvest Festival?”

“Church of England?”

“Of course. I say, our curate was at Holt’s, George Hyde-Brown. Do you remember him?”

Of course I didn’t remember him. But he remembered dear old Pallas with his shining pate and lumbering size and his bonhomie. Happy days in the choir in the first form. And so on.

I played for the service. Pretty church, rotten organ. But rather gratifying to be of some use.

Old Needham used to call the fat matron’s corsets ‘Harvest Festivals’ because all was safely gathered in. Although I never much cared for jokes of this sort, nor any other kind of smut. I like to think that, even if I had married, I would have been gentlemanly towards my wife.

THREE.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Dear Mrs Snellgrove, the cook here at the Bellevue Hotel, took a shine to me as soon as I arrived all those weeks ago. Must be the old tum, and the twinkle; she recognised me as a hearty trencherman. And quite right too, although not easy at the moment with post-war shortages.

Mrs Snellgrove said the other day, “You’re looking a bit peaky, Mr L, but I know how to put the roses back in your cheeks.” Then, like a conjuror, she produced a fine hare.

“Give me a few days to hang it and jug it, Mr L, and you shall have a feast!”

“Where did you get that?” I enquired.

“My husband, but least said soonest mended”, she replied with a stern wink.

“Oh ho”, thinks I, “’tis his delight on a shining night!”

And it was a feast; every succulent mouthful. Which I ate in solitary splendour.

FOUR.

No sun - no moon!
No morn - no noon -
No dawn - no dusk - no proper time of day.
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member -
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds! -
November!

The gathering darkness in the afternoon is rather dispiriting, I must say. The lack of light rather puts one out of sorts. The coal is damp and smoky. I am starting to find my single gentleman’s pleasant room with sea view somewhat disagreeable. I should put my coat on and go out. But where would I go? And with whom?

FIVE.

We are not sure of sorrow,

And joy was never sure;

To-day will die to-morrow;

Time stoops to no man's lure;

And love, grown faint and fretful,

With lips but half regretful

Sighs, and with eyes forgetful

Weeps that no loves endure.

But surely, God’s love is eternal.

For a man who has spent so much time in Churches, I find it very hard to hear God.

I believe, oh yes I believe in organs, choirs, the Book of Common Prayer. God is a more difficult matter entirely.

It is December and it feels like more than just the year is ending.

The world outside is so grey; grey sky, grey sea, grey people.

The world inside, too.

From too much love of living,

From hope and fear set free,

We thank with brief thanksgiving

Whatever gods may be

That no life lives for ever;

That dead men rise up never;

That even the weariest river

Winds somewhere safe to sea.

The Bright Seraphim

World premiere of Jim Coyle's Piccolo Trumpet Concerto