Suite from Henry V

arranged by Muir Mathieson

Overture: The Globe Playhouse

Passacaglia: The Death of Falstaff

Charge and Battle

Touch her soft lips and part

Agincourt Song

Of Walton’s scores for Laurence Olivier’s three Shakespeare films, Henry V, Hamlet and Richard III, the first is generally considered the best – partly because it is outstanding as film music by any standards but partly also because it found special inspiration in the patriotic fervour that prevailed in this country during the Second World War. As Olivier said, “The music actually made the film.” Strangely enough, the composer himself, who was usually quick to take advantage of opportunities of this kind, never made a concert suite from the Henry V score. But Malcolm Sargent compiled a sequence of four pieces in 1945 and 18 years later Muir Mathieson, who had conducted the recordings for the original sound track in 1944, made the five-movement suite that will be performed on this occasion.

The Overture corresponds to the very beginning of the film as, with a flourish on a solo flute, a playbill advertising King Henry V at the Globe Playhouse flutters in the breeze. The camera then turns to Shakespeare’s theatre as it was in 1600 and the music assumes an appropriately Elizabethan sound. The Death of Falstaff, from a poignant scene depicting the demise of King Henry’s former drinking companion, is a passacaglia based on an ancient drinking song called “Watkins Ale” transformed into a funeral dirge for strings. Walton was dubious about writing music for the battle scene at Agincourt: “How does one distinguish between a crossbow and a long bow musically speaking?” he asked. With some help from Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky film score, however, he proved to be more than equal to the task, as Charge and Battle so thrillingy confirms. Over a long-term crescendo and acceleration the French advance with “Réveillez-vous Piccars” to which the English reply with “Spirit of England” as the sounds of battle rise to a climax. After the defeat of the French an eerie silence is followed by an atmospheric echo on cor anglais of “Baïlèro” from Canteloube’s Songs of the Auvergne.

Touch her soft lips and part – another poignant little piece for strings alone – comes from earlier in the film as, after the death of Falstaff, Pistol and his friends take their fond farewell from Mistress Quickly at the Boar’s Head. The suite ends with the ancient Agincourt Song proudly performed in procession as the English leave the field of battle for Calais and “for England then, where ne’er from France arrived more happy men.”