In Honor of the City is a composition by British composer George Dyson. The work is written for choir and orchestra.
Dyson did not have much experience with writing for choir and came with this work as a surprise for his magnum opus The Canterbury Pilgrims. It is a representation of five of the seven verses of Scottish writer William Dunbar (? 1465-? 1530). The verses date from around 1500; Meanwhile there are some doubts as to whether the verses of Dunbar are. In the verses, the city of London is praised. The Londoners themselves found their city dirty, dangerous (most houses were of wood) and they therefore suffer from all kinds of diseases that imply the lack of hygiene. Yet, it was generally promising about London, which had a leading role in England.
The music still sounds adventurous, later Dyson would return to the more classical shapes and music, which made him little performances of his music during his later life. It was not until the 80s and 90s of the 20th century. A recurring theme in the composition are the clocks of Westminster Abbey; often played by the horns.
William Walton later wrote a composition based on the same theme; Walton left the old texts; Dyson translated the verses to the 1930s. Source and discography
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