Vaughan Williams and English folk music

The composer Ralph Vaughan Williams was one of the musicians who participated in the first English Folk Song revival, as well as using folk song tunes in his compositions. He collected his first song, Bushes and Briars, from Mr Charles Pottipher, a seventy-year-old labourer from Ingrave, Essex in 1903, and went on to collect over 800 songs, as well as some singing games and dance tunes. For 10 years he devoted up to 30 days a year to collecting folk songs from singers in 21 English counties, though Essex, Norfolk, Herefordshire and Sussex account for over two thirds of the songs in his collection. He recorded a small number of songs using a phonograph but the vast majority were recorded by hand. He was a regular contributor to the Folk Song Society's Journal, a member of the society's committee from 1904 to 1946, and when in that year the society amalgamated with the English Folk Dance Society he became president of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, a position he held until his death.[1][2][3]

Vol. 2 no 8 of the Journal of the Folk Song Society was dedicated to 61 songs collected by Vaughan Williams from singers in Essex, Norfolk, Sussex, Wiltshire, Yorkshire, Kent and London.[4] Book 2 of Cecil Sharp's series "Folk Songs of England", titled "Folk-songs from the eastern counties" published in 1908, consisted of 15 songs from Vaughan William's collection, from Essex, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire.[5] Eight Traditional English Carols was published in 1919, and Twelve Traditional Carols From Herefordshire, written with song collector Ella Mary Leather in 1928. "The Penguin Book Of English Folk Songs" edited by Vaughan Williams and A L Lloyd was published in 1959 and "A Yacre Of Land: Sixteen Folk-songs From The Manuscript Collection Of Ralph Vaughan Williams" by Imogen Holst and Ursula Vaughan Williams was published in 1961. A large part of his collection has never been published.[6] In his final decade, Vaughan Williams revisited the folk-song with two large-scale choral anthologies: the 1949 Folk Songs of the Four Seasons, and The First Nowell in 1958.[7]

Roy Palmer commented: "On the whole, Vaughan Williams was more interested in the song than the singer, in the melody than the message." He often failed to record the texts of songs, and when he did write down texts often recorded only the first verse. The text of one song, The Long Whip, seems to have been lost completely as a result. Vaughan Williams knew that the texts of many of the songs he was preserving had been printed as broadsides and he sometimes used broadside texts to fill out his songs for publication. He did not bowdlerise the material he collected for publication, as some other collectors did, but was as much as they were forced to recognise the constraints of the time when it came to publishing "unsuitable" material. Sometimes too he failed to note singers' names or occupations.[1]

## References[edit]

1. ^ a b Palmer, Roy (ed.); Bushes and Briars - Folk Songs Collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams; Llanerch; 1999 pp vii-xxiii
2. ^ Roud Folk Song Index https://www.vwml.org/search?ts=1492461835806&collectionfilter=RoudFS;RoudBS&advqtext=0|cr|Vaughan Wil Retrieved 2017/04/17
3. ^ EFDSS Full English Project; https://www.vwml.org/vwml-projects/vwml-the-full-english/vwml-full-english-collectors/vwml-ralph-vaughan-williams Archived 2017-04-12 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 2017/04/17
4. ^ Journal of the Folk Song Society vol.2 no. 8 https://archive.org/details/journaloffolkson02folk Retrieved 2017/04/17
5. ^ Folk-songs from the eastern counties; https://archive.org/details/folksongsfromeas00vaug Retrieved 2017/04/17
6. ^ Roud Bibliography Index https://www.vwml.org/search/search-bibliographies?qtext=VAughan Williams&ts=1492465603636&collectionfilter=RoudBib#record=13 Retrieved 2017/04/17
7. ^ Onderdonk, ch 7, p. 145

## Sources[edit]

* Onderdonk, Julian (2013). "7. Folksong arrangements, hymn tunes and church music". In Alain Frogley and Aidan Thomson (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Vaughan Williams. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 136–156. ISBN 978-0-521-19768-7.

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Ralph Vaughan Williams

List of compositions

Opera|

* Hugh the Drover
* Sir John in Love
* The Poisoned Kiss
* Riders to the Sea
* The Pilgrim's Progress

Ballet|

* Job: A Masque for Dancing

Orchestral works|

* A Sea Symphony (Symphony No. 1)
* A London Symphony (Symphony No. 2)
* Pastoral Symphony (Symphony No. 3)
* Symphony No. 4 in F minor
* Symphony No. 5 in D major
* Symphony No. 6 in E minor
* Sinfonia antartica (Symphony No. 7)
* Symphony No. 8 in D minor
* Symphony No. 9 in E minor
* In the Fen Country
* Norfolk Rhapsodies
* Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
* Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus
* The Story of a Flemish Farm
* Concerto Grosso

Concertante|

* The Lark Ascending
* Flos Campi
* Piano Concerto
* Suite for Viola and Orchestra
* Oboe Concerto
* Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra
* Tuba Concerto

Chamber music|

* Romance for viola and piano
* Six Studies in English Folk Song

Choral music|

* A Cambridge Mass
* Five Mystical Songs
* Fantasia on Christmas Carols
* O clap your hands
* Mass in G minor
* Sancta Civitas
* Magnificat
* Five Tudor Portraits
* Dona nobis pacem
* Serenade to Music
* An Oxford Elegy
* Folk Songs of the Four Seasons
* Three Shakespeare Songs
* O taste and see
* Hodie

Vocal music|

* Songs of Travel
* "Whither Must I Wander"
* On Wenlock Edge
* Four Hymns
* Ten Blake Songs
* Four Last Songs

Incidental music|

* The Wasps
* The First Nowell

Film scores|

* 49th Parallel (1940 drama film)
* Coastal Command (1942 film)
* The Flemish Farm (1943 war film)
* Stricken Peninsula (1945 propaganda film)
* The Loves of Joanna Godden (1946 historical drama film)
* Scott of the Antarctic (1948 film)
* Bitter Springs (1950 film)
* The England of Elizabeth (1955 documentary)

Other compositions|

* English Folk Song Suite
* Sea Songs

Namesakes|

* Vaughan Williams Memorial Library

Related articles|

* Anglican church music
* Bath Bach Choir
* Curse of the ninth
* English Folk Dance and Song Society
* The English Hymnal
* The Oxford Book of Carols
* Society for the Promotion of New Music
* Songs of Praise

Category

Portals:

* Biography
* Classical music
* England

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