It was during the afterglow of a concert by Snowdown Colliery Welfare Male Voice when John Du Prez and Deborah Cook offered to write a piece for male voices.
“They loved the sound of a male choir, and, after a few drinks had been taken, they volunteered to put something together,” according to one of the choir. “We didn’t really know anything about them.”
The ‘didn’t know anything’ included not knowing John’s reputation background as a Grammy Award-winning British musician, conductor and composer who has scored over 20 feature films. A Trevelyan Scholar at Christ Church, Oxford he worked as a Music Lecturer at London University when he entered the film industry composing additional music for Monty Python’s Life of Brian.
Working frequently with the Pythons and scoring movies for George Harrison’s Handmade Films. He co-wrote Monty Python’s Spamalot with Eric Idle, winning a Grammy Award for Best Musical.
Meanwhile Deborah Cook, in her own words , had “achieved brief notoriety” for writing a song called ‘Day Trip to Bangor’ which hit number three in the charts for Fiddler’s Dram. She also wrote many, many hours of TV and radio, most notably The Archers, Eastenders, House of Elliott, Casualty, The Royal, and is now a novelist. She knows how to tell a story.
The result is one of the most moving songs of Remembrance that we or any choir has sung. The Flowers of the Field.
John updated his score and gave this definitive version to Cirencester MVC – and he offers it to other choirs – as a song that honours those who gave sacrificed their lives and which at its closing, carries a message of hope for the future.
It is John’s hope that a recording is made with the final poignant verse of hope is one day sung by children.
We have not yet achieved that, but this recording of CMVC with the wonderful Blue Notes from South Cerney, does it some justice.