James Barnes

Yorkshire Ballad (Revised 2nd Edition)

Yorkshire Ballad began in the summer of 1983 with a telephone conversation between James Barnes and Tom Rhoads, who was at that time the band department manager at Southern Music Company. Rhoads suggested to Barnes that he should compose a short, easy work for young bands somewhat in the style of Percy Grainger. Barnes had recently returned from a vacation to England, where he had spent a considerable amount of time driving through the stunningly beautiful Yorkshire Dales of Northern England. He composed the work in two days.

Yorkshire Ballad has become the most widely performed of all James Barnes' works, selling thousands of copies all over the world. In the last 15 years, he has rescored or approved arrangements of nine other settings of the work for various ensembles: from symphony orchestra to flute ensemble, along with three different versions for solo tuba (for Patrick Sheridan.) Although the piece sounds like a folksong, all musical material in the work is original.

Having conducted this work so many times over the years, Barnes decided to complete a revised version to clarify and change a few things in the piece. This revised version simplifies some scoring problems in the original version, most notably the voicing on the final E flat chord. The two eighth-note pick-ups have been changed to two half notes to ensure a better start for the horns, saxophones and clarinets.