Commissioned by the Three Choirs Festival and performed there for the first time on 13 August by the Philharmonia Orchestra under Martyn Brabbins, these variations on Vaughan Williams's hymn tune ‘Down Ampney’ (so named after the village of the composer's birth), were surprising individual successes. The overall shape of the work, arch-like with a slow-fast-slow-fast-slow structure, was suggested by John McCabe, celebrating his 65th birthday year and featured composer at this year's Three Choirs. McCabe, joined in this collaborative effort by Robert Saxton, James Francis Brown, David Matthews and Judith Bingham, also sensibly requested that the orchestration be limited to double woodwind, modest brass and percussion sections, harp and the usual strings.