It was published in 1889 in “The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems”. He was a leader of the “Irish Renaissance” and spiritualist, winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923. The text is by William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet and dramatist and one of the greatest poets in the English language of the twentieth century. Unhelpfully, Britten subtitles the song as “Irish Tune”. Ironically, the first folksong isn’t really a folksong. She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs īut I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears. In a field by the river my love and I did stand,Īnd on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand. She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree īut I, being young and foolish, with her did not agree. She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet. B Yeats) 1889ĭown by the salley gardens my love and I did meet I won’t be discussing all the folksongs in the settings here, but some that I am preparing for current concerts.ĭown By The Salley Gardens (W. Britten’s experience as an opera composer comes into play in the more narrative songs, where dramatic scenes are spun with utmost efficiency. The beauty of the Britten settings is the simplicity but highly effective nature of the accompaniments, to reveal, introduce and weave the mood of the song. The strophic nature of the songs lend themselves to a comparison with Die Schöne Müllerin. As with some of Schubert’s accompaniments the piano parts are often based on a single motif or pianistic “idea” without too much development. As a performer, I sense something Schubertian in the folksong settings. I am in awe of Britten’s control and fine sense of nuance in this performance in particular, but the entire Britten/Pears Schubert legacy is a treasure. The Britten/Pears Schöne Müllerin is a joy to hear. Some musical characteristics of Britten’s folksong settings.īritten was a great Schubert interpreter. They were specifically intended as encores and to end the Britten-Pears recitals. Many writers have bemoaned the “artyness” of Britten’s folksong settings. They are designed for a collector and analyst of a very different nature: the recitalist. His songs are not meant for the ethnomusicologist or anthropologist. Grainger’s folksong transcriptions differ radically from his folksong arrangements, in that they are meticulously notated, often with highly complex metres and rhythmic patterns, as the young man strove to write down the performance he heard as accurately as possible.īritten was content to use the material collected by others. Britten got to know these r ecordings, conducting and recording “Salute to Percy Grainger” in the 1970’s for the Decca record Label. According the Graham Johnson, veteran accompanist and close friend of Peter Pears in his last years, Cecil Sharp prided himself on the “unobtrusive” nature of his accompaniments, claiming that they added to the authenticity of his legacy.Īustralian pianist and composer Percy Grainger (1882-1961) came to Britain in 1901, using a recording machine. By all accounts he was not much of a composer, and his accompaniments and folksong settings are rather dull, but they are extremely valuable in the preservation of the vocal lines. He published 1, 118 folk melodies and wrote over 500 accompaniments. The British public seemed to enjoy the prestige of these names, and there was an absolute boom in sales and interest in dressing up folkmusic in “civilised garb”.Ĭecil Sharp (1859-1924) was another important figure in the history of English Folksong, collecting over 4000 folksongs and notating each by hand. Thomson recruited no less than Joseph Haydn and Ludwig von Beethoven, Hummel and Carl Maria von Weber. Written with piano accompaniment, a few were orchestrated in the early 1950’s.įolksong setting in Britain prior to Brittenīritten’s English folksong publication is predated by a massive project during the 1780’s by George Thomson Edinburgh (1757-1851), of publishing arrangements of folksongs by the greatest European composers. By 1947, three sets of folksongs from the British Isles and mainland Europe were published, forming a treasure trove of recital material. Benjamin Britten (Lord Britten of Aldeburgh 1913-1976) needed recital and encore material for his recitals with England’s foremost tenor of the time, his life-partner Sir Peter Pears (1910-1986). Published in 1943 these works therefore also reflect a certain nostalgia for the homeland of a composer in exile. The first set was written during the self-imposed exile of Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears – as conscientious objectors to the British War effort as well as the legal intolerance of homosexual partnerships – to the USA from 1932 to 1942.
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