Five Northumberland Songs 2

The second of two special commemorative performances held as part of the Hotspur Festival as Alnwick town celebrates 700 years of the Percy Family in Alnwick. The commissioned work includes a 40-minute work for double choir, piano and Northumbrian pipes by Cheryl Camm.

In her programme notes Cheryl says of the work:
"This set of five songs was inspired by the history and beauty of Northumberland and also by the quirky and insightful writings in his 1835 book Rambles in Northumberland and the Scottish Borders of William Andrew Chatto, whose words I have moulded into the lyrics of the songs.

"Chatto is fond of recounting tales, which in turn were told to him on his travels, in the dialect of the original storyteller, and this is reflected in the songs particularly the second, in which various fishing tales from the Coquet are chronicled, and the fourth in which the traveller ventures rather anxiously down a coal mine. The first song gathers together an assortment of Hotspur war cries from various sources into a fighting collage, the third explores in advisory tone the various difficulties a traveller may encounter hereabouts, and the fifth is an intoxicated drinking song in which all participants indulge in a bit of irregular staggering about."