Ralph Vaughan Williams - English Folk Song Suite

This is an orchestral transcription by Gordon Jacob of the original piece and was performed by the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields conducted by Sir Neville Marriner.

Written in 1923, the English Folk Song Suite is one of English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams's most famous works for military band. Although it is commonly known by the title given above, it was actually published as "Folk Song Suite" - the title which is used on the score and parts. In 1924, the piece was arranged for full orchestra and later for brass band by Vaughan Williams' student Gordon Jacob, when the longer title was used, presumably with the composer's approval. It follows that performances and recordings by orchestras always use the later title, but those by wind bands as often use the original, shorter, title, even though bandsmen regularly talk of the "English Folk Song Suite".

The suite consists of three movements: March, Intermezzo and another March. The first march is called Seventeen Come Sunday, the Intermezzo is subtitled My Bonny Boy and the final movement is based on four Folk Songs from Somerset. Its premiere was given at Kneller Hall on July 4, 1923, conducted by Lt Hector Adkins. It originally had a fourth movement, Sea Songs, which was played second, but the composer removed it after the first performance and published it separately (interestingly, this included an orchestration by the composer himself, not one by Gordon Jacob).

Ralph Vaughan Williams

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ralph Vaughan Williams OM (/ËŒreÉªf ËŒvÉ”Ën ËˆwÉªljÉ™mz/[n 1] 12 October 1872 â€“ 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 nearly fifty 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 outlook. 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 1907â€“08 with the French composer Maurice Ravel helped him clarify the textures of his music and free it from Teutonic influences.

Vaughan Williams is among the best-known British symphonists, noted for his very wide range of moods, from stormy and impassioned to tranquil, from mysterious to exuberant. Among the most familiar of his other concert works are Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (1910) and The Lark Ascending (1914). His vocal works include hymns, folk-song arrangements and large-scale choral pieces. He wrote eight works for stage performance between 1919 and 1951. Although none of his operas became popular repertoire pieces, his ballet Job: A Masque for Dancing (1930) was successful and has been frequently staged.

Two episodes made notably deep impressions in Vaughan Williams's personal life. The First World War, in which he served in the army, had a lasting emotional effect. Twenty years later, though in his sixties and devotedly married, he was reinvigorated by a love affair with a much younger woman, who later became his second wife. He went on composing through his seventies and eighties, producing his last symphony months before his death at the age of eighty-five. His works have continued to be a staple of the British concert repertoire, and all his major compositions and many of the minor ones have been recorded.

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