''The Banks of Green Willow'' is a piece of orchestral music by

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

George Butterworth George Sainton Kaye Butterworth, MC (12 July 18855 August 1916) was an English composer who was best known for the orchestral idyll ''The Banks of Green Willow'' and his song settings of A. E. Housman's poems from '' A Shropshire Lad''. Early ...

. It was composed in 1913, is written in the key of

A major A major (or the key of A) is a major scale based on A, with the pitches A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Its key signature has three sharps. Its relative minor is F-sharp minor and its parallel minor is A minor. The key of A major is the only k ...

, and is around six minutes long.

Composition

This is a short orchestral piece by

, probably the most played of his three works for orchestra. It has certainly been his most recorded orchestral work. Described by its composer as an "Idyll", and written in 1913, it is scored for a small orchestra consisting of two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, one trumpet, harp and strings. It is thus a belated companion to the ''Two English Idylls'' of 1910-1911. All three pieces are founded on folk melodies Butterworth collected in Sussex in 1907, each has a similar "arch" shape, and each lasts between 4½ and 6 minutes. Butterworth based ''The Banks of Green Willow'' on two folk song melodies that he noted in 1907 - "

The Banks of Green Willow ''The Banks of Green Willow'' is a piece of orchestral music by British composer George Butterworth. It was composed in 1913, is written in the key of A major, and is around six minutes long. Composition This is a short orchestral piece by ...

" (Child 24,

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 ...

172) and "Green Bushes" (Roud 1040, Laws P2). The first was noted from the singing of "Mr & Mrs Cranstone" of Billingshurst, though a few bars from the end (after the flute and harp have played Green Bushes) a solo violin muses on a variant of the tune, recorded by Butterworth in 1909, using a

phonograph A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...

, from the singing of David Clements in a

Basingstoke Basingstoke ( ) is the largest town in the county of Hampshire. It is situated in south-central England and lies across a valley at the source of the River Loddon, at the far western edge of The North Downs. It is located north-east of Southa ...

Workhouse (and available on the

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website). Versions of the second tune were noted from at least ten different singers, though the tune as it appears in the ''Idyll'' is not any of them. Each use of each tune varies slightly, and it is likely that Butterworth created new variants based on features of all the various versions he collected. Green Bushes as it appears in the ''Idyll'' most closely resembles that sung by Ned Harding of Lower Beeding, Sussex, in June 1907. It is interesting that the composer also noted a version from Mr Cranstone, though it is not much like the one in the ''Idyll''. Green Bushes was a common tune, and there are notable uses of it in works by

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 ...

(Folk Song Suite, Movement 2) and

Percy Grainger Percy Aldridge Grainger (born George Percy Grainger; 8 July 188220 February 1961) was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist who lived in the United States from 1914 and became an American citizen in 1918. In the course of a long an ...

(''Passacaglia: Green Bushes'' and ''The Lost Lady Found''). A solo clarinet and strings create a pastoral scene with the title theme, followed by a short development and restatement of the tune. The mood becomes more sombre and agitated as a new theme (Butterworth's own, on horns) is introduced. An animated motif leads to the main climax, which is surprisingly passionate for such a short work, before the music subsides to introduce Green Bushes hesitantly on oboe. This is repeated gently on flute, accompanied by harp, and the piece ends tranquilly with snatches of the variant title theme on violin solo, horn and oboe. As the composer said this piece is a "musical illustration to the ballad of the same name", it may be useful to realise that the folk ballad tells the tale of a farmer's daughter who falls in love with a young sea-captain, becomes pregnant and runs away with him to sea, having first stolen money from her parents. When her child is born on board ship, the labour is especially difficult and there is no "woman's help" available. Knowing she will die, she asks her lover to "bind a napkin round my head, then throw me overboard, both me and my baby" Her lover does this and watches as she "quivers" - presumably in her death-throes - and he sings a lament to "my true love, whom I once loved so dearly" and who shall be buried on "The Banks of Green Willow" (Butterworth's capitalisation). It is a shocking tale, even more so in other collected versions, where it is the man who decides to throw the girl and baby overboard rather than risk the shame of taking them home (Mr & Mrs Cranstone's text is a little more palatable). The premiere of ''The Banks of Green Willow'' took place on 27 February 1914, when

Adrian Boult Sir Adrian Cedric Boult, CH (; 8 April 1889 – 22 February 1983) was an English conductor. Brought up in a prosperous mercantile family, he followed musical studies in England and at Leipzig, Germany, with early conducting work in London ...

conducted a combined orchestra of forty members of the Hallé and Liverpool orchestras in

West Kirby West Kirby is a resort town on the north-west corner of the Wirral Peninsula in Merseyside, England, at the mouth of the River Dee, Wales, River Dee. Within the boundaries of the Historic counties of England, historic county of Cheshire, to th ...

. This was, in fact, the 24-year-old conductor’s first concert with a professional orchestra (he also gave the British premiere of

Hugo Wolf Hugo Philipp Jacob Wolf (13 March 1860 – 22 February 1903) was an Austrian composer of Slovene origin, particularly noted for his art songs, or Lieder. He brought to this form a concentrated expressive intensity which was unique in late Ro ...

's '' Italian Serenade'' at the same concert). The London premiere took place three weeks later, and seems to have been the last occasion Butterworth heard his own music. Butterworth was killed on 5 August 1916, during the

Battle of the Somme The Battle of the Somme ( French: Bataille de la Somme), also known as the Somme offensive, was a battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British Empire and French Third Republic against the German Empire. It took place bet ...

. He was aged 31, and was a Lieutenant in the

Durham Light Infantry The Durham Light Infantry (DLI) was a light infantry regiment of the British Army in existence from 1881 to 1968. It was formed in 1881 under the Childers Reforms by the amalgamation of the 68th (Durham) Regiment of Foot (Light Infantry) and t ...

. His body has never been recovered.

Recorded history

* Maurice Miles/

Philharmonia Orchestra The Philharmonia Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It was founded in 1945 by Walter Legge, a classical music record producer for EMI. Among the conductors who worked with the orchestra in its early years were Richard Strauss, W ...

(1946) * Sir

London Philharmonic Orchestra The London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) is one of five permanent symphony orchestras based in London. It was founded by the conductors Sir Thomas Beecham and Malcolm Sargent in 1932 as a rival to the existing London Symphony and BBC Symphony ...

(1954) * Sir Adrian Boult/London Philharmonic Orchestra (1969)BBC Classics BBCRD 9119 *

Neville Dilkes Neville Dilkes (born 28 August 1930) is an English conductor and organist. He was born in Derby, England to a musical family. He became a Fellow of Trinity College of Music, London, and later did his National Service in the Royal Army Medical ...

/English Sinfonia (1971) * Sir Adrian Boult/London Philharmonic Orchestra (1973) * Sir

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(1975) *

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/ London Symphony Orchestra (1976) *

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(1978) *

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(1987) *

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/English String Orchestra (1988) * Sir

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/English Chamber Orchestra (1989) *

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(1991) * Kenneth Page/ Orchestra Da Camera (1996) *

Richard Hickox Richard Sidney Hickox (5 March 1948 – 23 November 2008) was an English conductor of choral, orchestral and operatic music. Early life Hickox was born in Stokenchurch in Buckinghamshire into a musical family. After attending the Royal Gram ...

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(2000) * Sir

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/ Hallé Orchestra (2002) *

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(2004)Apex 2564614372

Modern representations

The popular piece is often used in TV adverts with wholesome panoramic views of the British countryside, for products such as

dog food Dog food is food specifically formulated and intended for consumption by dogs and other related canines. Dogs are considered to be omnivores with a carnivorous bias. They have the sharp, pointed teeth and shorter gastrointestinal tracts of ca ...

and

life insurance Life insurance (or life assurance, especially in the Commonwealth of Nations) is a contract between an insurance policy holder and an insurer or assurer, where the insurer promises to pay a designated beneficiary a sum of money upon the death ...

, as well as being a favourite of Classic FM. There are many variant folk songs by the same name. A 2003 novel by the Irish writer

Kevin Myers Kevin Myers (born 30 March 1947) is an English-born Irish journalist and writer. He has contributed to the ''Irish Independent'', the Irish edition of ''The Sunday Times'', and ''The Irish Times''s column "An Irishman's Diary". Myers is kno ...

also has the title.

Other versions

Piano solo, arranged by John Mitchell (

Music Sales Record sales or music sales are activities related to selling music recordings (albums, singles, or music videos) through physical record shops or digital music store. Record sales reached the peak in 1999, when 600 million people spent an avera ...

as a special order edition Brass band * arranged by Phillip Brookes (Pabmusic, 1972) * arranged by Duncan Wilson Recorded by The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. Arranged by George Hinchcliffe. On album Lousy War 2016.

References

External links