Its a dwindling band; old-fashioned & of a certain age you can pick us out at funerals & memorial services because we can sing the hymns without the book. Alan Bennett writes: In 2001 the Medici Quartet commissioned the composer George Fenton to write them a piece commemorating their thirtieth anniversary. George Fenton appeared in my play Forty Years On" & has written music for many of my plays since & he asked me to collaborate on the commission. Hymn was the result. First performed at the Harrogate Festival in August 2001 its a series of memoirs with music. Besides purely instrumental passages for the quartet many of the speeches are under-scored incorporating some of the hymns & music I remember from my childhood & youth. The text
Includes:: both words & music. Hymn is coupled with Cocktail Sticks an oratorio without music that revisits some of the themes & conversations of Alan Bennetts memoir "A Life Like Other Peoples". A son talks to his dead father as his mother yearns for a different life. Its funny tender & sad. The pinnacle of my social life is a scrutty bit of lettuce & tomato & some tinned salmon. Mind you I read in Ideal Home that if you mix tinned salmon with this soft cheese you can make it into one of those moussy things. Shove a bit of lemon on it & it looks really classy."