Malcolm Arnold wrote this little fantasy in the early 1960s as a present for his children Katherine and Robert to play together. Even as a miniature it has many of the hallmarks of the Arnold style such as the evocative melodic writing together with the occasional dark dissonance. It was written at a time when Arnold was deeply into film music. Perhaps this is why in the famous film Whistle Down the Wind the main theme is for flute/piccolo and turns out to be not entirely dissimilar to the theme found in this fantasy.
