39 f
e became fascinated by A Shropshire Lad, the poem cycle by AE Housman published in 1896, and set eleven poems to music as Six Songs From A Shrop- shire Lad and Bredon Hill And Other Songs. Although none of these songs uses folk melodies, the influence of traditional tunes can still be heard. In addition, he also composed the orchestral rhapsody, A Shropshire Lad. Housman’s themes of pastoral nostalgia resonated with composers such as Vaughan Williams and Butterworth, while the poems’ pessimism and preoc- cupation with death appeared to anticipate the First World War.
H
There were few other compositions ¬– Butterworth destroyed some of them while on leave during the war: he was extremely self- critical of his work. Fortunately, his best-known work was saved. This was his orchestral idyll The Banks Of Green Willow, made up of two traditional tunes: the title and Green Bushes. This work had its first performance in West Kirby, Cheshire, in February 1914, in a concert which saw the conducting debut of Adrian Boult.
George Butterworth enlisted a month after war was declared. He was soon offered a commission and became a second lieutenant in the Durham Light Infantry. He saw action in the summer of 1915, and then, along with thousands of others, he fought in the Battle of the Somme, which lasted from 1 July through until November 1916. While fighting to take a trench from the enemy, George Butter- worth was killed by a sniper early in the morning of 5 August 1916.
Even in the midst of the dreadful carnage of the Somme, Butterworth’s death was widely mourned. His death had a deep impact on his father, Alexander: many parents felt great guilt in encouraging their sons to enlist, and guilt at surviving them. He assembled a memo- rial volume, containing a memoir by George’s friend RO Morris (later a professor at the Royal College of Music), his wartime diary, letters, appreciations and reviews.
Before the war, Butterworth’s music was applauded for its tech- nical quality: harmonisation, orchestration and the beautiful melodies. But as the casualty lists became longer, the focus changed. As Gareth Roddy has recently shown in an article in the Journal of [Gerald] Finzi Friends, the music was now seen “on an emotional level”, with the music being described as “poignant” or “tender”, and Butterworth seen as a tragic figure, killed before his potential could be realised. By the mid-1920s, the technical quality of the music was again to the fore. Butterworth was seen as a foundation stone of the English pastoral style, heavily influenced by folk song. Meirion Hughes and Robert Stradling, writing in 2001 in The English Musical Renaissance 1840-1940, described Butterworth as “the musi- cal equivalent of Rupert Brooke for a music-conscious generation”. In more recent years the pastoral Englishness of his music has been emphasised and, as the centenary of the war approached, the music again assumed an elegiac, poignant image.
f the song collectors who were active in the early 20th Century, the name of Cecil Sharp looms large. The Hammond brothers in Dorset and George Gardiner in Hampshire received attention through the Marrow Bones series of song books in the 1960s, currently being republished. Sabine Baring-Gould has a festival to celebrate his song collecting and Martin Graebe’s publication of his songs is keenly awaited. The contributions of Lucy Broadwood and Frank Kidson have recently been recognised with a biography and concert performances by Pete Coe and Alice Jones respectively. The work of Anne Gilchrist still awaits critical assessment. Percy Grainger and Ralph Vaughan Williams remained active composers and champi- oned folk song until their deaths in the 1950s/’60s.
O
George Butterworth’s song collection has not been studied in detail since Michael Dawney’s work almost 40 years ago, and is surely due for reassessment. With his song, morris and sword dance collect- ing, his excellence as a dancer, and his small but impressive oeuvre of compositions, Butterworth was, more than any of his pre-1914 con- temporaries – and in cricketing parlance – a true all-rounder. F
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84
