A Lark Ascending

Very true.

Interesting programme on the radio about this a few days back. The general consensus was that leaving specific instructions about how you want to be sent off or be buried/cremated was essentially a vanity project. Funerals being for the living to grieve and adjust to the loss; the person being dispatched isn't even there. So why make people who are already shattered have to deal with a bunch of specific instructions? Made sense to me. Sprinkled, shaken, stirred - it's all the same to me.

Does taking your surname, converting it into musical notes and then weaving them into a composition count too as a reason for a permanent dispatch to Coventry?

A lot of this depends on at what point in history you draw the line. There's a volume of letters between Vaughan Williams and Holst called 'Heirs and Rebels'. In their time using English folk music as a source in order to find a way to a vernacular English music was considered highly dangerous to those wedded to the Germanic tradition.

Another one worth considering is Britten's late suite 'A Time There Was' - uses folk sources but in a more tart way than the rich, Romanticism of most of the English cowpat school (no criticism intended there of the latter - I'm besotted with the music of cowpatism).

I suspect Bailey and Stevens were reacting against the tradition mapped out in 'Electric Eden'. But there's room in these isles for all manner of traditions.

Thought we were stuck on moustaches but here's the chance to go for baldness and leap free.

Cries out for Gilbert O'Sullivan in response!

They seem to do the trick - though Bax's imagination was more inspired by Ireland and, later, Scotland. I'm not sure if your list has to have a reference in the text or just be in the spirit. If the latter I'd include (as music that has a very 'English' feel): Bridge - There is a Willow Grows Aslant a Brook Vaughan Williams - 5th Symphony 3rd Movement Tippett - Concerto for Double String Orchestra (slow movement) Holst - A Somerset Rhapsody (and for something much darker, Egdon Heath) Arnold - Symphony 5 (slow movement) Butterworth - A Shropshire Lad Percy Grainger - A Lincolnshire Posey

Black Sabbath!!!!!!!!!????? Eden!

Yes, I noticed that. Not bad for a double LP.

No 'Tobacco Road', 'Light My Fire', 'I can't quit you, Baby'?

Anyone heard this: Recorded in 1979. Must have been one of his earliest solo albums - a double LP with: A1 Tortworth Oak (First Version) 11:14 A2 The Unlonely Raindancer 10:56 B1 Thank You God For My Wife And Children 8:06 B2 The Muted Melody 10:20 C1 Steel Yourself / The Bell, The Gong, The Voice 18:07 C2 Dear Ireland 2:03 D1 The Pool 4:24 D2 Tortworth Oak (Second Version) 13:35 D3 Midnight Snow Walk 1:09 No sign of it anywhere.