Percy Eastman Fletcher

Festival Toccata

The Festival Toccata is relatively well-known among the works of Fletcher and is popular as a wedding piece and for encores. The brilliance of Festival Toccata's surface disguises the fact that one does not need to be a virtuosoto play it well and effectively. Percy Fletcher was an English composer, conductor and Orchestrator of prodigious output who made his career in the lively world of the London music theatre of the years of the late 19th and early20th century. He was music director at many theatres, including His Majesty's Theatre for the last seventeen years of his life. He was the Orchestrator and conductor for the big budget spectacular theatre piece Chu ChinChowwhich ran for five years, a record that remained unbroken for forty years. In addition to his myriad works of light music, Fletcher also wrote a serious church cantata, The Passion of Christ, as well as the delightfulchildren's work, The Walrus and the Carpenter.