Westerly Winds, op. 84 (score & parts) - WW5

1. Scrumpy Giles
2. Widecombe Jan
3. Lazy Lawrence
4. The Looe Bar Lady

Westerly Winds, commissioned by the Galliard Ensemble in 1999, is a recasting for wind quintet of the orchestral Four Rustic Sketches Op 80. It is essentially a sequence of four short fantasias basedon West Country folk tunes. 

Scrumpy Giles is based on the tune Farmer Giles, who, in this version, suffers from over-indulgence of Somerset's famous tipple!

Widecombe Jan is said to have sold his soul to the Devil. He was a bad character prone to riotous living and gambling. He disappeared dramatically one stormy night on a big black steed, leaving a trail of playing cards across the moor. The four aces were scattered on the hillside and today they can still be clearly seen as little intakes carved out of the rough moorland near Chaw Gully in Devon.

Lazy Lawrence. In a field above Cerne Abbas in Dorset lies the figure of a giant man 180 feet tall. Some accounts associate the giant with murder and sacrifice, but in this setting the beautiful Dorset tune Linden Lea is used to portray the other notion that he was in fact the god of fertility.

The Looe Bar Lady. The sane of Looe Bar in Cornwall are said to be haunted by a little old lady who ran into Helston waving a bunch of wild flowers, shouting the good news that she had witnessed the evil one being defeated in a terrible conflict. To this day the people of Helston still dance the Flora (the Floral Dance) in her memory.

Duration: 12:00