''Mai-Dun'' is an orchestral work composed in 1921 by John Ireland (18791962). He called it a symphonic rhapsody; another description might be tone poem. In 1931, he arranged it for

piano four hands Piano four hands (french: À quatre mains, german: Zu vier Händen, Vierhändig, it, a quattro mani) is a type of piano duet involving two players playing the same piano simultaneously. A duet with the players playing separate instruments is ...

. In British Celtic, "Mai-dun" means "great hill". Ireland's piece is a musical evocation of a notable iron age fort: Maiden Castle, Dorset, nearby the house of the English novelist and poet

Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Word ...

(18401928) whose name for the place Ireland adopted. It has been said that, "ancient sites with echoes of the supernatural, including the Channel Islands, inform some of Ireland’s few orchestral pieces"; and of ''Mai-Dun'' itself that, "it is a strong piece, aggressive at times, resourcefully scored, and Ireland’s imagination was ignited by the largest hill-fort in England, dating from 3000BC, and its violent history." A typical performance takes about 12½ minutes.

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