Welcome to the first episode of The Thunder Mutters, featuring the poem 'April' from John Clare's 'The Shepherd's Calendar' performed by Adam Horovitz, and interspersed with tunes from Clare’s tune manuscripts performed by Becky Dellow.

We’ll be coming back every month for the next year with the whole of Clare’s calendar, and presenting poems and tunes by other poets and from other tune books in the meantime.

All the tunes have been taken from John Clare's tune manuscript books, and Becky's arrangements used the transcriptions provided by Marion Ross in George Deacon's book John Clare and the Folk Tradition (Sinclair Browne Ltd., 1983).

The tunes, whose histories are discussed in the show, are listed here for your convenience, in order of appearance:

The Gardengate (theme tune for the show), Bath Waltz, Moll i'the Wad, The Self, Tommy Jenkins, Fairy Dance, Paddy Carey, The Cuckoo and Woods Hornpipe.