For King and Country
COMPOSER’S NOTE
On the 23rd August 1914 the Battle of Mons took place – the first major conflict between the British and the Germans in World War I. During this battle more than a hundred British soldiers claim to have witnessed the vision of an angel which guided them to safety. I wrote The Angel of Mons to depict this event and the drama between the angel, the soldiers and the loved ones at home.
For King and Country – using text by my brother Andrew – is the opening movement and conveys the men relinquishing their peacetime duties and leaving their families behind to fight for their country. It depicts the early optimism at the outbreak of the war, the soldiers’ heroism and their ‘honest wills to God and right entrusting’.
DURATION
3 minutes
CHORUS
SATB or SSA
INSTRUMENTATION
Piano OR Strings & Harp
YEAR OF COMPOSITION
2014
PUBLISHER
Novello
SHEET MUSIC
Available from
JW Pepper
Music Room
Music Shop Europe
Orchestral parts available on hire
Email: hire@wisemusic.com
Tel: +44 (0)1284 596 004
Long expected; well prepared;
The militia men are gathering.
In every town, on every green
The yeomanry are mustering.
Ploughmen, thatchers, clerks and smiths
Their daily task relinquishing,
Are encamped throughout the land
In deadly earnest practising.
Volunteers by veterans led
Are off to fight heroically,
Their hearts of oak, their honest wills
To God and right entrusting.
Down Jack-dressed streets
Through cheering crowds they’re marching.
As England’s white cliffs sail from sight
The victory is beginning.
Words: Andrew Hawes (1954 – )
