Voluntary in D

Sir George Dyson KCVO (28 May 1883 – 28 September 1964) was a well-known English musician and composer. Born in Halifax, Yorkshire, on 28 May 1883. He attended the Royal College of Music and was a winner of the Mendelssohn Scholarship in 1905, which enabled him to spend some years in Italy and Germany. In 1914 he joined the Royal Fusiliers, and during this time wrote a widely-used training pamphlet on the use of grenades. After being invalided home with shell-shock in 1916 and recovering, he joined the Royal Air Force and became involved in their military bands. In 1921 he took up posts as music master at Wellington College and as professor of composition at the Royal College of Music. He then worked for thirty years as a school music teacher (at Rugby, Wellington and Winchester), before being appointed as Director of the Royal College of Music in 1937. He received a knighthood in 1941 and was made a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO) in 1953. He died in Winchester on 28 September 1964, aged 81.

If you're wondering whether it's his descendants who designed and manufacture the Dyson vacuum cleaner - YES!!!

While preparing some new, larger works, including a wonderful and rarely heard "passacaglia" by Dyson, I thought to make a quick upload of this nice piece, which appears in "An Album of Praise" published by OUP in 1958.

The work is English-cathedral through and through, and has a certain "military swagger" to it at times. It features a fair number of "English cadences" which serves to give the piece a "Tudor feeling" in some of the phrases. Marked "con moto ritmico" the work moves along at a brisk pace, building to an impressive chorale-like "Largamente" at the end.

There was no provision for the tuber, but I worked her in, PLUS an extended pedal point on Mr. 32' Bombarde... ;-)

Would you have expected less?!?