English composers Ralph (pronounced “Rafe”) Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) and Benjamin Britten (1913-1976, once Vaughan Williams’s pupil) held an interest in folk music - and settings of it - throughout their lifetimes.
Vaughan Williams made settings of some 217 folksongs and carol arrangements between 1903 and 1954; Britten made arrangements (with some quite individual accompaniments, as you shall hear today) of 53 folksongs between 1943 and1976. In each case, the predominance is music from the British Isles, but each composer set a few French songs as well.
Folksong had an influence in some of Vaughan Williams own music, especially in its earlier phases, while very little of the folk element may be found in Britten’s original compositions.
Both composers created a great deal of original vocal music as well, for solo as well as for multiple voices in small to large groups. Vaughan Williams once stated: “The human voice is the oldest musical instrument and through the ages it remains what it was, unchanged; the most primitive and at the same time the most modern, because it is the most intimate form of human expression.”
The Vaughan Williams pieces we hear today make up his Six Studies in English Folksong, written in 1926 originally for ‘cello and piano - but with alternate versions for violin, viola, or clarinet. Vaughan Williams stated flatly that these were not transcriptions of actual folk tunes; they might be described as elaborations, or perhaps “reflections”, on the tunes which inspired them. The last of the six is the only fast piece, the others being, indeed, reflective.
The six songs on which the movements are based are (in the order we hear them): Lovely on the Water; Spurn Point; Van Diemen’s Land; She borrowed some of her mother’s gold; The Lady and the Dragon; and As I walked over London Bridge.
Vaughan Williams was fascinated as he heard elderly country people sing their folksongs. In 1903, he asked one of the singers how he came across the tune just sung. The reply: “If you can get the words, the Almighty sends you a tune.” The composer’s own serious regard for the form is reflected in this quote from him: “If I may venture to give my own definition of a folk song, I should call it “an individual flowering on a common stem.”
A delightfully whimsical view of folksong was espoused by concert comedienne Anna Russell (who died this past October at the age of 94). Quoting her:
“The folksong is for the natural, untrained voice – which sounds very easy, but it isn’t, because to be a real folksong singer you have to collect the songs straight ‘from the horse’s mouth.’ The way to do this is to go to a village and find the oldest inhabitant, and ask him to sing you the ‘songs his mother taught him.’ Well, you’ll probably find that he’s deaf. And if he isn’t deaf, he can’t sing. And if he can sing, he doesn’t want to. And by the time you’ve persuaded him and he does sing, you won’t understand a word of what he’s singing about. This is how folksongs have been passed down from generation to generation!”
When the 16-year-old Benjamin Britten was admitted to the Royal College of Music, one of the three professors who heard his works and approved him for admission was Ralph Vaughan Williams. The older composer later related that when the musically exuberant Britten came into an examination with a bundle of compositions, he was met with Vaughan Williams – a twinkle in his eye – saying “Is that all?” To which Britten replied, “Oh no. I’ve got two suitcases full outside.”
As time went by, Vaughan Williams felt somewhat at odds with the “modernity” of Britten’s music, but he never denied the younger man’s talent and originality.
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