''English Folk Song Suite'' is one of English composer

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 ...

' most famous works. It was first published for the

military band A military band is a group of personnel that performs musical duties for military functions, usually for the armed forces. A typical military band consists mostly of wind and percussion instruments. The conductor of a band commonly bears the tit ...

as ''Folk Song Suite'' and its premiere was given at

Kneller Hall Kneller Hall is a Grade II listed mansion in Whitton, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. It housed the Royal Military School of Music, training musicians for the British Army, which acquired the building in the mid-19th century. I ...

on 4 July 1923, conducted by Lt Hector Adkins. The piece was then arranged for full orchestra in 1924 by Vaughan Williams' student

Gordon Jacob Gordon Percival Septimus Jacob CBE (5 July 18958 June 1984) was an English composer and teacher. He was a professor at the Royal College of Music in London from 1924 until his retirement in 1966, and published four books and many articles about m ...

and published as ''English Folk Song Suite''. The piece was later arranged for British-style brass band in 1956 by Frank Wright and published as ''English Folk Songs Suite''.Published score by Boosey & Hawkes, 1956, ref. B&H 18233 All three versions were published by

Boosey & Hawkes Boosey & Hawkes is a British music publisher purported to be the largest specialist classical music publisher in the world. Until 2003, it was also a major manufacturer of brass, string and woodwind musical instruments. Formed in 1930 throu ...

; note the use of three different titles for the three different versions. The suite uses the melodies of nine English folk songs, six of which were drawn from from the collection made by Vaughan Williams’ friend and colleague

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 t ...

.Garofalo, Robert and Graebe, Martin (2014) ‘Focus on Repertoire: Folk songs in Ralph Vaughan Williams' English Folk Song Suite’, ''WASBE World'', Vol 6, No 1

Structure

The suite consists of three

movements Movement may refer to: Common uses * Movement (clockwork), the internal mechanism of a timepiece * Motion, commonly referred to as movement Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * "Movement" (short story), a short story by Nancy Fu ...

March March is the third month of the year in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. It is the second of seven months to have a length of 31 days. In the Northern Hemisphere, the meteorological beginning of spring occurs on the first day of Marc ...

Intermezzo In music, an intermezzo (, , plural form: intermezzi), in the most general sense, is a composition which fits between other musical or dramatic entities, such as acts of a play or movements of a larger musical work. In music history, the term ha ...

and another March. The first march is called "

Seventeen Come Sunday "Seventeen Come Sunday", also known as "As I Roved Out", is an English folk song (Roud Folk Song Index, Roud 277, George Malcolm Laws, Laws O17) which was arranged by Percy Grainger for choir and brass accompaniment in 1912 and used in the first ...

", the Intermezzo is subtitled " My Bonny Boy" and the final movement is based on four "Folk Songs from Somerset". It originally had a fourth movement, "

Sea Songs ''Sea Songs'' is an arrangement of three British sea-songs by the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. It is based on the songs "Princess Royal", " Admiral Benbow" and "Portsmouth". The work is a march of roughly four minutes duration. It fo ...

", which was played second, but the composer removed it after the first performance and published it separately, with his own orchestration.

March: "Seventeen Come Sunday"

''Seventeen Come Sunday'' opens after a four-bar introduction with the principal

melody A melody (from Greek language, Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a Linearity#Music, linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most liter ...

– the folk song "

" Kennedy, Michael: ''A Catalogue of the Works of Vaughan Williams'', Oxford University Press, 1964, p. 103 (

Roud The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of around 250,000 references to nearly 25,000 songs collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world. It is compiled by Steve Roud (born 1949), a former librarian in the London ...

277) – played by the woodwind section (flutes in orchestrated version). This melody is repeated, and the woodwind is joined by the brass (violins in orchestrated version). The phrasing is irregular – the melody lasts for thirteen bars. Vaughan Williams appears to have used two alternative versions of this song from Cecil Sharp’s collection, one from the Traveller Kathleen Williams in the Forest of Dean, and the other from his prolific source

Lucy White Lucy Anna White (4 September 1848 – 17 February 1923) was a British folk-singer from Somerset. She was an early source of songs for the folk song collector Cecil Sharp and she is said to have shaped his interests. Her half-sister was another s ...

of Hambridge, Somerset. This melody is followed by "Pretty Caroline" (Roud 1448) as a quiet air for solo clarinet or solo cornet (clarinet only in orchestrated version), which is also repeated. This tune was derived from a recording made in 1908 by Ella Mary Leather from Ellen Powell of Westhope, Herefordshire, using a phonograph loaned to her by Vaughan Williams. He later transcribed the song from the recording, which is publicly available online. A third melody, "Dives and Lazarus" (Roud 177,

Child A child ( : children) is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger ...

56) then enters in the lower instruments. This tune comes from the collection of Vaughan Williams himself: he notated the song "The Red Barn", set to a variant of the well-known "Dives and Lazarus" melody, from a Mr John Whitby in Norfolk in 1905. The arrangement here is particularly interesting for having a 6/8 rhythm played as a counterpoint by the upper woodwinds, against the straight 2/4 rhythm of the saxophones and brasses. This third theme is repeated, then leads straight back to the second theme. Finally, the first theme is repeated in a Da Capo al Coda. The

form Form is the shape, visual appearance, or configuration of an object. In a wider sense, the form is the way something happens. Form also refers to: *Form (document), a document (printed or electronic) with spaces in which to write or enter data ...

of this movement can be represented by A–B–C–B–A (

Arch form In music, arch form is a sectional structure for a piece of music based on repetition, in reverse order, of all or most musical sections such that the overall form is symmetric, most often around a central movement. The sections need not be repeat ...

Intermezzo: "My Bonny Boy"

"My Bonny Boy" (Roud 293) opens with a solo in F Dorian for the oboe (sometimes doubled or played by solo cornet) on the tune of the folk song of the same name, which is repeated by the low-register instruments. Midway through the movement, a ''Poco Allegro'' begins on "

Green Bushes Green Bushes is an English folk song (Roud #1040, Laws P2) which is featured in the second movement of Vaughan Williams's '' English Folk Song Suite'', in Percy Grainger's ''Green Bushes (Passacaglia on an English Folksong)'', and in George Butterw ...

" (Roud 1040), first sounded by a piccolo, E-flat clarinet, and oboe in a minor harmonic context, then repeated by the lower brass with major harmony. The first melody is played again in fragmented form before the close of the movement. Vaughan Williams noted on his score that "My Bonny Boy" was taken from the book ''English County Songs'' while the "Green Bushes" melody seems to have been adapted from two versions collected by Cecil Sharp, one in the Dorian and one in the Mixolydian mode, the modal ambiguity being reflected in the composer’s harmonization. \relative c'

March: "Folk Songs from Somerset"

"Folk Songs from Somerset" is based on the melodies of four folk songs from the eponymous collection published in five volumes by

with

Charles Marson Charles Latimer Marson (16 May 1859 – 3 March 1914) was an influential figure in the second wave of Christian socialism in England in the 1880s. Later between 1903 and 1906 he collaborated with his good friend Cecil Sharp in the collection and p ...

, based on fieldwork they had carried out in the county during the early 1900s. It opens with a light introduction of four measures before a jaunty major melody, " Blow Away the Morning Dew" (Roud 11, Child 112) collected from Lucy White and Lucy Hooper in Hambridge in 1903, is introduced on solo cornet (clarinet in orchestration). This melody is then dovetailed around the band/orchestra before finishing with a

fortissimo In music, the dynamics of a piece is the variation in loudness between notes or phrases. Dynamics are indicated by specific musical notation, often in some detail. However, dynamics markings still require interpretation by the performer dependi ...

reprise. A second melody in the Aeolian mode, "

High Germany High Germany is a geographical term referring to the mountainous southern part of Germany. The term is first found in medieval Latin as , for example in chapter 23 of the ''Imago mundi'' of Honorius Augustodunensis (12th century, Regensburg): , "Fr ...

" (Roud 904), from Mrs Lock of Mulcheney Ham then takes over. This is played in the tenor and lower register with trombones prominent, while the remaining instruments provide an on-beat chordal accompaniment. As this second melody dies away, the original melody is heard once again with a ''tutti'' reprise. This leads into the trio, with a

key change In music, modulation is the change from one tonality ( tonic, or tonal center) to another. This may or may not be accompanied by a change in key signature (a key change). Modulations articulate or create the structure or form of many pieces, a ...

and a

time change Daylight saving time (DST), also referred to as daylight savings time or simply daylight time (United States, Canada, and Australia), and summer time (United Kingdom, European Union, and others), is the practice of advancing clocks (typicall ...

to 6/8, introducing a more delicate modal air played by the woodwind with a light accompaniment. In the past this melody has been identified erroneously as "The Trees They Do Grow High" (Roud 31), but more recent research has found a much closer correspondence with the song "Whistle, Daughter, Whistle" (Roud 1570), as sung by Walter Locock of Martock. This melody continues until the

time signature The time signature (also known as meter signature, metre signature, or measure signature) is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats (pulses) are contained in each measure (bar), and which note value ...

changes back to the original 2/4, with the entry of a robust major melody,

John Barleycorn "John Barleycorn" is an English and Scottish folk song listed as number 164 in the Roud Folk Song Index. John Barleycorn, the song's protagonist, is a personification of barley and of the alcoholic beverages made from it: beer and whisky. ...

(Roud 164), originally taken down by Sharp from Robert Pope of Minehead.Sharp, Cecil, and Marson, Charles, ''Folk Songs from Somerset'', vol. 3 (1906), pp. 9-11 This enters in the lower instruments (trombones and double basses in orchestrated version) while the cornets play decorative features above. The trio is then repeated in full before a D.C. is reached and the first two themes are revisited. The form of this movement can be represented by A–B–A. (

ternary form Ternary form, sometimes called song form, is a three-part musical form consisting of an opening section (A), a following section (B) and then a repetition of the first section (A). It is usually schematized as A–B–A. Prominent examples includ ...

)

Instrumentation

Original 1923 concert band version

* E-flat flute and piccolo, concert flute and piccolo, E-flat clarinet, solo B-flat clarinet, ripieno 1st B-flat clarinet, 2nd B-flat clarinet, 3rd B-flat clarinet, E-flat alto clarinet, B-flat bass clarinet, oboes and C clarinets, 1st bassoon, 2nd bassoon, E-flat alto saxophone, B-flat tenor saxophone, E-flat baritone saxophone, B-flat bass saxophone and contrabass clarinet, 1st B-flat cornets, 2nd B-flat cornets, B-flat trumpets, 1st and 2nd horns in F (E-flat in the score), 3rd and 4th horns in F (E-flat in the score), 1st trombone, 2nd trombone, bass trombone, B-flat baritone, euphonium, basses, timpani, drums (cymbals, bass drum, snare drum, triangle). The suite was published in 1923 by

as ''Folk Song Suite''. The part titled "concert flute and piccolo", although singular, requires at least two players since the flute and piccolo parts are simultaneous for much of the suite, and the final movement includes split parts. Other parts that require two players are the oboes and B-flat trumpets. The E-flat clarinet part has divisis in the final movement only, most of which is already doubled in the solo/first B-flat clarinet voice, making the second E-flat clarinet not entirely necessary. Solo and 1st B-flat cornets are printed on one part (originally titled "1st cornet"), but one player is required for solo and one for 1st. The part for B-flat baritone is actually for a baritone

saxhorn The saxhorn is a family of valved brass instruments that have conical bores and deep cup-shaped mouthpieces. The saxhorn family was developed by Adolphe Sax, who is also known for creating the saxophone family. The sound of the saxhorn has a ...

, no longer present in the military band (not the euphonium) and this part disappears from later editions of the set, with the only evidence being cued notes on the euphonium part.

2008 revised concert band version

* Concert flute and piccolo, oboe, E-flat clarinet, solo B-flat clarinet, 1st B-flat clarinet, 2nd B-flat clarinet, 3rd B-flat clarinet, E-flat alto clarinet, B-flat bass clarinet, 1st bassoon, 2nd bassoon, E-flat alto saxophone, B-flat tenor saxophone, E-flat baritone saxophone, B-flat bass saxophone and contrabass clarinet, solo and 1st B-flat cornets, 2nd B-flat cornet, B-flat trumpets, 1st and 2nd horns in F, 3rd and 4th horns in F, 1st trombone, 2nd trombone, bass trombone, euphonium, tuba, string bass, 1st and 2nd percussion (timpani, cymbals, bass drum, snare drum, triangle).

published a revised edition of the piece in 2008. This edition features a computer-engraved full score and parts, incorporating corrections to engraving errors evident in the original edition. Other changes include the addition of rehearsal numbers to the score and parts, the titles of the folk songs added where they occur in the music, the horns notated in F in the score instead of in E-flat, the separation of the string bass from the tuba into its own part, and the percussion split into two parts.

1924 orchestra version

* 2 flutes (2nd doubling piccolo), oboe, 2 B-flat clarinets, bassoon, 2 horns in F, 2 B-flat trumpets, 2 trombones, timpani, percussion (cymbals, bass drum, side drum, triangle), strings (violins, violas, cellos, and double basses). The suite was arranged for full orchestra by

, one of Vaughan Williams' pupils, and published in 1924 by

as ''English Folk Song Suite''.

1956 brass band version

* E-flat soprano cornet, solo B-flat cornet, ripieno B-flat cornet and flugelhorn (one part, two players), 2nd B-flat cornet, 3rd B-flat cornet, solo E-flat horn, 1st E-flat horn, 2nd E-flat horn, 1st B-flat baritone, 2nd B-flat baritone, 1st B-flat trombone, 2nd B-flat trombone, bass trombone, B-flat euphonium, E-flat bass, B-flat bass, drums (side drum, bass drum, cymbals and triangle), Timpani. The suite was arranged for Brass Band by Frank Wright and published by

in 1956 as ''English Folk Songs Suite'' (this follows the orchestral version in adding 'English' to the title but it also pluralises 'Songs'). The music is transposed down (by a

perfect fourth A fourth is a musical interval encompassing four staff positions in the music notation of Western culture, and a perfect fourth () is the fourth spanning five semitones (half steps, or half tones). For example, the ascending interval from C to ...

) presumably to make it fit more comfortably within the register of the brass band. The arrangement uses the standard

British brass band In Britain, a brass band (known regionally as a silver band or colliery band) is a musical ensemble comprising a standardized range of brass and percussion instruments. The modern form of the brass band in the United Kingdom dates back to the 1 ...

scoring for 25 brass players and 2/3 percussionists (see

for details of transpositions and numbers of players per part). Rehearsal numbers were added to the score and parts but the individual folk tunes remain unnamed. This edition remains a staple of the Brass Band repertoire.

References

External links

First Edition Score
from

IMSLP The International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP), also known as the Petrucci Music Library after publisher Ottaviano Petrucci, is a subscription-based digital library of public-domain music scores. The project, which uses MediaWiki software ...

* Recording by the

United States Marine Band The United States Marine Band is the premier band of the United States Marine Corps. Established by act of Congress on July 11, 1798, it is the oldest of the United States military bands and the oldest professional musical organization in the ...

*
1. Seventeen Come Sunday
*
2. My Bonny Boy
*
3. Folk Songs from Somerset
{{Authority control Compositions by Ralph Vaughan Williams Concert band pieces Compositions for brass band Orchestral suites 1923 compositions Compositions using folk songs