Drink Old England Dry: a Folksong Frolic for Busy Fingers
I made this arrangement for 2-pianos 8-hands on April 29th, the day of the Royal Wedding which I'm afraid I did not watch live. All very comfortingly British our monarchy may be, and probably a force [institutionally speaking] for the national good, but the more you look into the whole thing - its huge cost to the taxpayer, its disfunctional individuals, its scandalously pompous lifestyles, its terrible history, and so on - the more questionable it all is. But it nonetheless is there and we are, as a people, very fond of our quirky institutions. The world is apparently filled with envy for it and of course it generates lots of tourist income. There are plenty of worthy crown causes too: the DoE Award scheme, the Prince's Trust, the great charity schemes supported by some royal personages [Princess Anne for example]. And where would much of our best comedy satire be without Prince Philip, or Charles, or Harry? And William seems a quite decent sort of bloke. Anyway, who'd be a royal? Not me by choice! So I'd count as a 'keep the monarchy' person, despite my misgivings. Status quo and all that....
Anyway, this arrangement was a bit of fun. I opened one of my folksong collections at random and this was the tune I discovered and set. So often do I feel like giving up composing that only self indulgent escapism such as this keeps me ticking over, creatively speaking:
I made a piano duet arrangement of this piece in April 2014, for two good friends of mine to play! I think it manages to include all the 'activity' of the original: