1066, 1415 and 1588, three dates that are, or at any rate were at one time, engraved on the brain of every schoolchild.  The middle one might possibly cause the most trouble, yet it is perhaps the most relevant to us living in Petersfield. The Battle of Agincourt has been immortalised in Shakespeare’s words and on film by Lawrence Olivier and Kenneth Brannagh., and one of Henry V’s top generals lived close by, at Trotton.   Lord Thomas Camoys, who commanded the left wing at the battle, was responsible for building the famous bridge and lies buried in the church.   His tomb is marked by a huge brass depicting him in full armour, holding his wife’s hand, with the Order of the Garter below his left knee.  it was perhaps this local connection that inspired Sir George Dyson to compose his cantata, Agincourt, when commissioned by the Petersfield Musical Festival to write a work for its Golden Jubilee in 1956, a work which is being revived at this year’s Festival.

 Dyson was a Yorkshireman, born in Halifax in 1883, and won an Open Scholarship to the Royal College of Music at the age of seventeen.   After study abroad and war service, during which he became an acknowledged authority on grenade warfare, he became the voice of public school music.

 It was during his time as Director of Music at Winchester College, from 1924 until 1937, that he achieved greatest fame as a composer.   Practical experience with choirs in the district inspired him to compose works like In Honour of the City in 1928 and The Canterbury Pilgrims in 1931.   Later, for the Three Choirs Festival, he wrote Nebuchadnezzar and Quo Vadis and contributed anthems for the Coronations of 1937 and 1953.

 In 1935 he became the first President of the National Federation of Music Societies and was appointed Director of the Royal College of Music in 1939 and knighted in 1941. During this time he wrote his Symphony and Violin Concerto, and he continued to compose vocal and instrumental works until, and beyond, his retirement from the College in 1953, in a style which chose steadfastly to ignore the fact the music in post-war Britain had moved on.

 Dyson was a prolific composer of part songs, and it was these which first brought his music to the Petersfield Festival.   From 1927 until 1964 scarcely a year went by without one of his works being included as a competition piece, often for women’s voices alone.

 But it was not until after the war that any of his major works were heard here, and the new Festival Conductor, Dr. Sidney Watson, was obviously a great devotee.   In only his second year in the post, 1947, he introduced Dyson’s best known cantata, The Canterbury Pilgrims, followed five years later by Hierusalem.   In 1954 he directed In Honour of the City, and such was Dyson’s popularity that the Festival commissioned a new work from him, Agincourt, which the composer himself conducted.

 In 1960 Dyson, by now in his late seventies, attended a performance of The Canterbury Pilgrims at Churcher’s College, conducted by T. Warden Lane, with Wilfred Brown and Norman Tattersall among the soloists.  In those days Tim Lane was Mr Music in Petersfield and as well as teaching at the College, he was Organist at St. Peter’s Church, Musical Director of the Petersfield Operatic Society and, from 1945 until 1981, conductor of the Petersfield Choral Society.   He served on the Festival Committee during the same period and became President in 1983, dying in the following year.

 After Dyson’s death in 1964, his music, a handful of church services apart, fell into almost total neglect.   Here in Petersfield, however, Richard Seal revived Hierusalem in 1977 and Bill Llewellyn conducted Three Songs of Praise in 1990, the latter sounding, to these ears at least, very dated.   From the mid-1980s, sparked by the enthusiasm of the late Christopher Palmer and subsequently spearheaded by the Sir George Dyson trust, there has been a substantial resurgence of interest, which has seen the recording of virtually all Dyson’s main works, including Agincourt.

 There may be a few singing in this year’s Festival who remember Agincourt from fifty years ago, but for many of us it will be new, and it will be interesting to hear how strongly the creative flame was still burning in this, one of his last works.

Tom Muckley, January 2008

This article was originally published by the Petersfield Post

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