''On Wenlock Edge'' is a

song cycle A song cycle (german: Liederkreis or Liederzyklus) is a group, or cycle (music), cycle, of individually complete Art song, songs designed to be performed in a sequence as a unit.Susan Youens, ''Grove online'' The songs are either for solo voice ...

composed in 1909 by Ralph Vaughan Williams for tenor, piano and string quartet. The cycle comprises settings of six poems from

A. E. Housman Alfred Edward Housman (; 26 March 1859 – 30 April 1936) was an English classical scholar and poet. After an initially poor performance while at university, he took employment as a clerk in London and established his academic reputation by pub ...

's 1896 collection '' A Shropshire Lad''. A typical performance lasts around 22 minutes. It was premiered by

Gervase Elwes Gervase Henry Cary-Elwes, DL (15 November 1866 – 12 January 1921), better known as Gervase Elwes, was an English tenor of great distinction, who exercised a powerful influence over the development of English music from the early 1900s up u ...

, Frederick Kiddle and the Schwiller Quartet on 15 November 1909 in the

Aeolian Hall, London Aeolian Hall, at 135–137 New Bond Street, London, began life as the Grosvenor Gallery, being built by Coutts Lindsay in 1876, an accomplished amateur artist with a predeliction for the aesthetic movement, for which he was held up to some ridicu ...

. It was later orchestrated by the composer in a version first performed on 24 January 1924. Subsequent editions show a measure excised from the final movement (Clun): the third measure from the end. The Boosey and Hawkes 1946 score notes indicates this in a footnote on the last page. The cycle was recorded by Elwes, Kiddle and the

London String Quartet The London String Quartet was a string quartet founded in London in 1908 which remained one of the leading English chamber groups into the 1930s, and made several well-known recordings. Personnel The personnel of the London String Quartet was: ...

in 1917. The Roman numerals in this list of the songs are taken from ''A Shropshire Lad'': # XXXI "On Wenlock Edge" # XXXII "From Far, from Eve and Morning" # XXVII " Is My Team Ploughing" # XVIII "Oh, When I Was in Love with You" # XXI "

Bredon Hill Bredon Hill is a hill in Worcestershire, England, south-west of Evesham in the Vale of Evesham. The summit of the hill is in the parish of Kemerton, and it extends over parts of eight other parishes (listed below). The hill is geologically par ...

" (first line: "In summertime on Bredon") # L " Clun" (Housman's title, and the first line: "Clunton and Clunbury") An earlier version of "Is My Team Ploughing?", for voice and piano, had been performed on 26 January 1909 in a concert sponsored by Gervase Elwes and

James Friskin James Friskin (3 March 1886, in Glasgow – 16 March 1967, in New York City) was a Scottish-born pianist, composer and music teacher who relocated to the United States in 1914. Biography Friskin studied in Glasgow with local organist Alfred ...

. To Housman's annoyance, Vaughan Williams omitted the third and fourth verses of "Is My Team Ploughing". The composer remarked in 1927 or later that he felt “that the composer has a perfect right artistically to set any portion of a poem he chooses provided he does not actually alter the sense”.

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* * Song cycles by Ralph Vaughan Williams 1909 compositions Songs based on poems Classical song cycles in English Musical settings of poems by A. E. Housman {{classical-music-stub

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