What is it?

I think of my song Of old sat Freedom on the heights as being to my other songs rather as Champagne is to grape juice! It's a setting of the poem by the same name by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and the third of the five songs that comprise Idylls. It is available in two versions, the first for solo soprano and the second for mixed choir (SATB), both with piano accompaniment. The melody is quite straightforward but the piano part - a glorious ripple of off-beat phrases - requires a proficient pianist with a good grasp of rhythym. Nevertheless it is such fun to play and so dazzlingly impressive for an audience that it’s well worth the effort, as was demonstrated by the Manchester-based pianist Jonathan Ellis.

I wanted this to sound wild - like an soprano singing her head off on a mountaintop with the wind howling around her. The solo performance in the official release captures that magnificently. Soon after completing it, I played this song to a friend. Her response says it all: "Wow!" Everything one gets taught about songs and accompaniments screams that this song shouldn't work: but it does, gloriously. I had sketched the main theme back in 1986 but put it aside and forgot about it until 1999, when it resurfaced as the main theme in my 'Toccata for piano', written for the Japanese pianist Makiko Nakachi.

The vocal part is not particularly difficult of itself, the main challenge being to have the confidence to hold to the beat regardles of what the pianist happens to be doing! The piano part at times cuts across the main beat in a way that makes everything feel slightly out of syncronisation, but in a strange way that adds to rather than subtracts from the beauty of the music.

Of all the songs I've written, 'Of old' is the one that most makes me think to myself, "You know what? This is a pretty decent song!" I hope you enjoy it.