On 11 July Matthew Hamilton conducted the Hallé Orchestra and Children’s Choir in Jonathan Dove’s Seaside Postcards at the Bridgewater Hall, as part of a concert of popular choral classics from across the repertoire.
Seaside Postcards is a sunny three-movement work for children’s voices and orchestra. The 15-minute work sets three traditional lyrics – ‘Wish You Were Here’, ‘The Sea is Calm’, and ‘Having a Lovely Time’ – with the choir mostly singing in unison, but occasionally breaking into four parts. Dove makes enthusiastic use of various sea shanties and rhymes, including ‘Row, row, row your boat’, ‘My Bonnie lies over the ocean’, and, in the finale, ‘Donkey Riding’.
Originally conceived as a two-movement work in 1995, Dove was commissioned by The Classical Roadshow to write an additional movement, The Sea is Calm, in 2004, with the three- movement version of the work published by Faber Music. Wish You Were Here and Having a Lovely Time were commissioned by the CBSO and premiered in 1995 with the City of Birmingham Symphony Youth Chorus and children from Birmingham primary schools, conducted by Simon Halsey. All three Postcards were first performed together on 11 March 2004 in Dorking Halls by the Guildford Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Hilary Davan Wetton. The Hallé previously performed Seaside Postcards in 2011, conducted by Timothy Redmond.