The Last of England (Composed by Nikolas Labrinakos) - The Budapest Scoring Orchestra

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The Last of England

Composer’s Note:

This elegy was inspired by the landscapes and cliff vistas of the south coast of England, and by an enduring affection for the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst, George Butterworth and Frank Bridge, which inspired me, however belatedly, to attempt my own contribution to this very special tradition of English pastoral music. In order to heighten the affinity with those composers, I chose to limit my harmonic means purely to the modal possibilities of the ‘white note’ scale – there is not a single sharp or flat in the score. And to intensify the elegiac sense of times past, I placed periodic violin and cello solos that might be thought of as the feelings and memories of a couple as they move towards their final departure from the land they have loved. Only after I had completed the piece was I shown Ford Maddox Brown’s famous picture of Victorian emigrants sailing away from the white cliffs of Dover which gave me my title.


The Last of England is scored for an orchestra of two flutes, clarinet and bass clarinet, harp and strings and runs around eight and a half minutes. In form, it falls into three large paragraphs linked by a pair of descending transitions for harp. The first paragraph, introduced by the solo cello, sets the contemplative mood, and introduces the melodic motifs which will be transformed throughout the score and the principal modal tonalities based on the notes C, F and A. The central paragraph is happier, more gently bucolic. But the mood darkens and becomes more agitated in the final paragraph leading to an eloquent climax and fading lament for solo violin – the work cadencing with the solo cello in starkest A minor.


Though initial sketches date from 2008, I was only able to score The Last of England in 2012. And it was not actually heard until the present recording was made in August 2020 by the Budapest Scoring Orchestra, which I was able to supervise on-line. I would like to pay tribute to the expressive artistry of these superb players drawn from some of Hungary’s top orchestras, and to the beautiful recorded sound-balance secured by John Witt Chapman in Hollywood. The recording seems to me as near-definitive an account of the piece as I am ever likely to get, and I was delighted when, on hearing it, the eminent English composer Professor Robin Holloway told me: “…the playing and the piece lovely – more English than the English…”


THE LAST OF ENGLAND

composed by

Nikolas Labrinakos



performed by

the Budapest Scoring Orchestra

conducted by
Péter Illényi


session producer Balint Sapszon
orchestra coordinator Bertalan Veer
recording engineer Tamas Kurina
mixing engineer John W. Chapman



camera operators Adam Kelemen

Laszlo Varga
video editor Sara Pasquali