Availability

Score and parts on special sale from the hire library

Programme Notes

The Blackbird, for piano quartet, was written in 1998, and is based on the Welsh folksong Y deryn du. In the song the blackbird gives advice to a young man in search of a wife. After rejecting the first three of the bird's suggestions, he willingly accepts the fourth, the bailiff's daughter. So in this instrumental setting the tune appears, appropriately, four times: on the viola, then the cello, then the violin and piano in canon.

© David Matthews

Y Deryn Du (The Blackbird)

breakfast on 3

BBC Radio 3 (United Kingdom)

Schubert Ensemble

Y Deryn Du (The Blackbird)

Breakfast on 3

BBC Radio 3 (United Kingdom)

Schubert Ensemble

Y Deryn Du (The Blackbird)

Guildhall (Bath, Somerset, United Kingdom)

student ensemble