Description
In the early years of the 20th century Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) amassed a collection of hundreds of English folk songs and carols. Whilst collecting ceased in 1914 upon the outbreak of the First World War – when, despite his age, Vaughan Williams enlisted with the Royal Army Medical Corps – folk song remained a lifelong passion.
Vaughan Williams not only collected folk songs, but he often incorporated them into his own work. In the English Folk Song Suite (1923) he employs no fewer than nine folk songs. The work is in three movements: the two outer movements are marches (Seventeen Come Sunday and Folk Songs from Somerset) whilst the second movement – My Bonny Boy – is a slower, lyrical intermezzo.
The suite was originally scored for wind band (in a version that it is still widely played) and later arranged for full orchestra by the composer’s student, Gordon Jacob, and for brass band by Frank Wright.
