At the Fair

At the Fair is a work for SATB chorus and chamber orchestra that presents three time-honored folk songs—She Moved Through the Fair, Brigg Fair, and Scarborough Fair. Though drawn from different corners of the British Isles, these songs share themes of love, parting, and remembrance. In each, “the fair” becomes both a gathering place and a crossroads of human experience—where longing, joy, and grief converge. The first movement, She Moved Through the Fair, of Irish origin, opens with a dreamlike melancholy. A young man watches his beloved move through the fair, radiant and ethereal, unaware that their promised wedding will never come to pass. The evocative lyrics, shaped by centuries of oral tradition and immortalized by Padraic Colum’s 1909 verses, blur the line between love and loss, life and death. Its haunting ambiguity—whether a tale of grief, ghostly return, or fleeting dream—has kept it a favorite for generations. The second movement, Brigg Fair, shifts to the English countryside and stands apart from the other two in tone and outcome. Collected in 1905 from Lincolnshire singer Joseph Taylor, it celebrates reunion and enduring love at the annual Brigg Horse Fair. Unlike the tales of sorrow and longing in the surrounding movements, Brigg Fair ends in quiet joy. Its lilting rhythms and glowing melody capture the warmth of simple devotion and the beauty of love fulfilled. The final movement, Scarborough Fair, remains one of England’s most familiar folk songs. The text unfolds as a wistful exchange between former lovers, framed by the refrain naming four herbs—parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme—each once a symbol of comfort, wisdom, remembrance, and courage. Its verses pose a series of impossible tasks, evoking yearning and the quiet recognition that some bonds can never be restored. The song’s hauntingly beautiful melody and poetic imagery have made it an enduring vision of bittersweet love. Across the three movements, At the Fair explores life’s passage through the shifting seasons of longing, love, and loss. Reimagined here for chorus and chamber orchestra, these beloved folk songs continue to resonate with the same depth and humanity that first gave them life.