Westerly Winds (1997-99)

1 Scrumpy Giles (Somserset) 2 Widecombe Jan (Devon) 3 Lazy Lawrence (Dorset) 4 The Looe Bar Lady (Cornwall)

Paul Patterson’s Westerly Winds originated as an orchestral score, Rustic Sketches, written for the 25th anniversary of the specialist music department at Bedford School in 1997. It was arranged for wind quintet and first performed by the Galliard Ensemble two years later. While the folk-song sources of its melodic material are not difficult to identify, it might be helfpful to add that Somerset is represented by “Farmer Giles,” Devon by “Widecombe Fair,” Dorset by “Linden Lea” and Cornwall by the “Helston Floral Dance” – though not, in the last case, without competition from “The British Grenadiers.”