Recording
- English Folk Song SuiteColumbia Broadcasting Symphony; Howard Barlow · 193911:41
The suite consists of a march, an intermezzo and a second march built from nine English folk songs; it was written for military band and is played here in an orchestral arrangement. The Columbia Broadcasting Symphony under Howard Barlow recorded it in December 1939.
Listening notes
- First march, “Seventeen Come Sunday”
The first march opens with the folk song Seventeen Come Sunday, played first by the woodwinds and strings. The tune’s phrases are irregular in length, which puts syncopations into the march.
- Pretty Caroline, solo clarinet
A two-bar bridge changes the key and leads into the second song, Pretty Caroline, which a solo clarinet plays.
- Dives and Lazarus in 6/8
Dives and Lazarus enters in the lower instruments in 6/8, while the upper winds play a straight 2/4 above it. The two rhythms clash until the reprise.
- Kneller Hall, 1923
Vaughan Williams wrote the suite in 1923 for the Royal Military School of Music at Kneller Hall, where it was first played on 4 July 1923. Gordon Jacob made the orchestral transcription the following year.
- Reprise and Picardy third
The reprise brings back the opening material. The movement ends on a Picardy third, a major chord at the close of music that has leaned towards the minor.
- Intermezzo, oboe solo
A minor chord opens the slow Intermezzo. A solo oboe plays My Bonny Boy in the F Dorian mode, and the lower instruments repeat it.
- Folk-song collecting after 1903
In the few years after 1903 Vaughan Williams spent every free moment collecting songs from elderly singers, most of which had never been written down. He travelled over much of the country by bicycle and train and gathered more than 800.
- Green Bushes, Poco allegro
Midway through the Intermezzo a solo violin leads into a Poco allegro on Green Bushes, a waltz-like tune.
- Return of “My Bonny Boy”
The first melody returns in a much more fragmented form. The movement ends quietly on a Picardy third, more striking than the one before.
- Final march, clarinet solo
The final march opens with what Burns called “a catchy introduction”. The clarinet then takes the solo line on Blow Away the Morning Dew, and the melody passes around the orchestra.
- Second tune, “High Germany”
The lower instruments lead the second tune, High Germany, and the trumpets play a fanfare above.
- Final tune, “John Barleycorn”
The last of the four tunes, John Barleycorn, is the heaviest. Trombones and basses lead, with a decorative melody above them.
- Columbia, December 1939
The Columbia Broadcasting Symphony under Howard Barlow recorded the suite on 19 December 1939, with an oboe solo in the Intermezzo played by Mitch Miller. It appeared in March 1940 as Columbia Masterworks set X-159.
- Reprise and final chord, last march
A reprise of the opening tune ends the march, which the Burgess Hill Symphony Orchestra’s programme note described as bringing “proceedings to an abrupt and good-humoured end”. The whole orchestra plays a final big chord.