Phillip Brookes: The Lent Lily, Op. 60 - A George Butterworth Sequence (final upload with narration)

I began writing this in December 2014, but my mother died unexpectedly in January - so I dedicated it to her. She would have understood this piece well, being from a background not too far removed from the singers and dancers George Butterworth met three decades before she was born.
The idea for The Lent Lily began with a suggestion that I orchestrate Butterworth’s eleven Folk Songs From Sussex. I thought that would work only if the songs were part of something larger, hence this. So it is a chance to experience some of Butterworth’s music that is either unfinished or almost never heard. For instance, there is every bar of his incomplete Fantasia here - mostly twice. There is also much of my own music, especially in the second half, as well as necessary adaptations of everything for small orchestra.
The Lent Lily Is divided into four “movements” interspersed with three groups of folk songs, and it ending with Butterworth’s setting of Oscar Wilde’s Requiescat. Along the way we experience the unfinished Fantasia for Orchestra, together with a movement of the Suite for String Quartette, and the opening and closing passages of In The Highlands. There are also 10 dances collected and arranged by Butterworth. Cecil Sharp rejected many of Butterworth's harmonisations as not suitable, so George made several in Sharp's 'bland' style - which were published anonymously in Morris Dances, vols IX & X. I have used two of the published dances (Saturday Night and Bonny Green) and eight of the rejected ones.
Over the whole a narrator reads extracts from Butterworth’s Diary of Morris Hunting, his War Diary and letters.
This work is a companion to my book George Butterworth: Words, Deeds & Memory, published by Musikproduktion Höflich of Munich.
PLEASE NOTE: Since this is a computerised performance it does not use a singer, who is substituted by a brass instrument of similar range. It is best to listen with headphones or through decent speakers. The narration is AI-generated.
Prelude: 00:00
Folk Songs From Sussex group 1: 03:36
Diary of Morris Hunting: 10:02
Folk Songs From Sussex group 2: 20:09
War Diary 1914-1915 26:56
Folk Songs From Sussex group 3: 38:50
Final Days 1916 44:52
Requiescat: 53:56