|
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 unti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams, (; 12 October 1872– 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over sixty years. Strongly influenced by Tudor music and English folk-song, his output marked a decisive break in British music from its German-dominated style of the 19th century. Vaughan Williams was born to a well-to-do family with strong moral views and a progressive social life. Throughout his life he sought to be of service to his fellow citizens, and believed in making music as available as possible to everybody. He wrote many works for amateur and student performance. He was musically a late developer, not finding his true voice until his late thirties; his studies in 1907–1908 with the French composer Maurice Ravel helped him clarify the textures of his music and free it from Music of Germany, Teutonic influences. Vaughan Williams i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Folk Revival
The British folk revival incorporates a number of movements for the collection, preservation and performance of folk music in the United Kingdom and related territories and countries, which had origins as early as the 18th century. It is particularly associated with two movements, usually referred to as the first and second revivals, respectively in the late 19th to early 20th centuries and the mid-20th century. The first included increased interest in and study of traditional folk music, the second was a part of the birth of contemporary folk music. These had a profound impact on the development of British classical music and in the creation of a "national" or "pastoral" school and led to the creation of a sub-culture of folk clubs and folk festivals as well as influential subgenres including progressive folk music and British folk rock. Origins Social and cultural changes in British society in the early modern era, often seen as creating greater divisions between different socia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cecil Sharp
Cecil James Sharp (22 November 1859 – 23 June 1924) was an English-born collector of folk songs, folk dances and instrumental music, as well as a lecturer, teacher, composer and musician. He was the pre-eminent activist in the development of the folk-song revival in England during the Edwardian period. According to ''Folk Song in England'', Sharp was the country’s "single most important figure in the study of folk song and music." Sharp collected over four thousand songs from untutored rural singers, both in South-West England and the Southern Appalachian region of the United States. He published an extensive series of song books based on his fieldwork, often with piano arrangements, and wrote an influential theoretical work, English Folk Song: Some Conclusions. He also noted down surviving examples of English Morris dance, Morris dancing, and played an important role in the revival both of the Morris and English country dance. In 1911, he co-founded the English Folk Dance So ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ella Mary Leather
Ella Mary Leather (26 March 1874 – 7 June 1928) was a British collector of the local folklore and songs of Herefordshire. Her seminal work, ''Folklore of Herefordshire,'' published in 1912, has been recognized as an authoritative "model of scientific scholarship." Amongst her other works are ''Twelve Traditional Carols from Herefordshire'', a collaboration with Ralph Vaughan Williams, and various notes to the journal of The Folklore Society. Early life Ella Mary Smith was born 26 March 1874 in the hamlet of Bidney, in Dilwyn parish, Herefordshire, England to Mary Ann (née Griffiths) and James Smith, a farmer. After attending Clyde House School, she completed her schooling at Hereford High School for Girls. Smith married a soliciter, Francis Leather, in 1893 and the two moved to the town of Weobley, where their three sons, John Francis, Geoffrey and Godfrey were born. Career When Leather first became interested in collecting folklore is unknown, but by 1904 her private journ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Folk Songs Of The Four Seasons
''Folk Songs of the Four Seasons'' is a cantata for women's voices with orchestra or piano by English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams written in 1949. Based on English folk songs, some of which he had collected himself in the early 20th century, the work was commissioned by the Women's Institute for a Singing Festival held at the Royal Albert Hall on 15 June 1950. The first performance featured a choir of 3,000 women, accompanied by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Adrian Boult. Ursula Vaughan Williams remembered that owing to the huge choir "the audience seemed far fewer than the performers". The work is in four movements grouped into the seasons, with a prologue: *Prologue: To the Ploughboy *Spring: Early in the Spring, The Lark in the Morning, May Song *Summer: Summer is a-coming in and The Cuckoo, The Sprig of Thyme, The Sheep Shearing, The Green Meadow *Autumn: John Barleycorn, The Unquiet Grave, An Acre of Land *Winter: Children's Christmas Song, Wassai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The First Nowell
"The First Nowell", also known as "The First Noel (or Noël)", is a traditional English Christmas carol with Cornish origins, most likely from the early modern period, although possibly earlier.The First Nowell ''Hymns and Carols of Christmas''. "carol of the 16th or 17th century, but possibly dating from as early as the 13th Century." Barrie Jones (ed.), ''The Hutchinson Concise Dictionary of Music'', Routledge, 2014, s.v. "carol", "Christmas carols were common as early as the 15th century. ..Many carols, such as '' and 'The First Nowell', date from the 16th century ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roy Palmer (folklorist)
Roy Ernest Palmer (10 February 1932 – 26 February 2015) was a singer, teacher, folklorist, author and historian who wrote more than 30 books on folklore and folk song. In 2003 he was awarded the Gold Badge, the English Folk Dance and Song Society's highest honour. He had much experience of performing to an audience, setting him apart from better known folk song scholars and anthologists who collected material but were less concerned with singing it. Life Born in 1932, Roy Palmer was educated at the Grammar School, Coalville, and at Manchester University. While at college he met Harry Boardman, a folk singer whose left-wing views he shared throughout his life. He taught for many years in grammar and comprehensive schools around the Midlands and was headmaster of the Dame Elizabeth Cadbury School in Birmingham for eleven years. In the 1960s he began recording and publishing traditional folk songs. A collection of his recordings are in the British Library and other materials ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Broadside Ballads
A broadside (also known as a broadsheet) is a single sheet of inexpensive paper printed on one side, often with a ballad, rhyme, news and sometimes with woodcut illustrations. They were one of the most common forms of printed material between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, particularly in Britain, Ireland and North America because they are easy to produce and are often associated with one of the most important forms of traditional music from these countries, the ballad. Development of broadsides Ballads developed out of minstrelsy from the fourteenth and fifteenth century. These were narrative poems that had combined with French courtly romances and Germanic legends that were popular at the King’s court, as well as in the halls of lords of the realm. By the seventeenth century, minstrelsy had evolved into ballads whose authors wrote on a variety of topics. The authors could then have their ballads printed and distributed. Printers used a single piece of paper known as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
