Arguably this is a somewhat damning judgement of the folksings Britten arranged. Through his Six Folk Song Collection books and his Eight Folk Song arrangements Britten covered a very large collection of songs. I have selected a number of folksongs in which I will record a version in the traditional style, a version in the classical style of singing that Britten intended to be performed and my own mix of the two to create a new style in which the songs may be sung. 

Through this I hope to combine two of my greatest musical fascinations in the hope of creating an interesting performance angle that may be a valid option of performance in the future to bring the two styles which while they are joined within these arrangements, still remain as two very seperate entities despite their combination within the scores. 

Another aspect which I have taken into consideration in my research is the different performance environments in which these combined genres are performed and the influence of this upon the styles of performance and atmosphere within performance. I was also very interested in how this also affected my personal performance styles. For example, does the environment and atmosphere linked to the style and mood in which classical music is generally performed one of the predominant issues within my storytelling, and does this also affect the traditional values and subtexts within the original Folk Songs. However this will be further addressed within my Fieldwork and Recordings and also within the Outside Reading sections of this research. 

Volume Four

  1. Avenging and bright
  2. Sail on, sail on
  3. How sweet the answer
  4. The minstrel boy
  5. At the mid hour of night
  6. Rich and rare
  7. Dear harp of my country!
  8. Oft in the stilly night
  9. The last rose of summer
  10. O the sight entrancing


The Last Rose of Summer is the most contemporary of all of the folksongs and it may be argued that it is in fact not a folk song at all. 

The Fourth Volume of the Folk Songs is dedicated to Anthony Gishford, a longstanding friend of Britten. Britten's forewords for this volume include this explanation of his choices: 

‘All the texts of these songs are from Thomas Moore’s Irish Melodies published between 1808 and 1834—in one case from the slightly later National Melodies. In most instances I have also taken the tunes from the same sources (music arranged by Sir John Stevenson); however, in a few cases I have preferred to go back to Bunting’s Ancient Music of Ireland, which had in the first place inspired Tom Moore to write his lyrics.’

The Last Rose of Summer is indeed one of these cases. The melody can be traced to an old Irish song, 'The Groves of Blarney' which sometimes was known as 'The Young Man's Dream'. 

However, the text of The Groves of Blarney follow a much more political text as opposed to the sad, wisful lyrics of the lone soul in 'The Last Rose of Summer'. 

 

Volume One:

  •  The Salley Gardens
  • Little Sir William
  • The Bonny Earl o' Moray
  • O Can Ye Sew Cushions?
  • The Trees They Grow So High
  • The Ash Grove and Oliver Cromwell.

 

Britten arranged each of these folk songs and dedicated them to American friends. I have researched and recorded 'The Trees They Grow So High'. This arrangement was dedicated to the son of David Rothman, an owner of a hardware Store. 

This song was originally collected by Bertha Bidder from an unknown woman in Devon, however versions of the song were located throughout Southern England and found their way up as far as Yorkshire, printed copies have also been found in Bodlien Libray. This song is in the form of a Broadside Ballad and is in the phrygian mode which is very unusual for a folk song. The presentaton and wearing of coloured ribbons was a commonplace tradition in England in the 1800s, and more than one source believes this song to be based on the tragic story of 'thejuvenile laird of Craigton to a girl several years his senior, the laird dying three years later in 1634'. However, the songs only began to presen themselves with melody in the early 1700s. The song is also found within the Cecil Sharpe Second volume which was published in 1921. 

Volume Six

I will give my love an apple 

Sailor-boy

Master Kilby

The Solider and the Sailor 

Bonny at Morn 

The Shooting of His Dear 

 

These arrangements were composed in the years between 1956 and 1958 and first published by Boosey and Hawkes in 1961, with the guitar lines having being edited and refined by Julian Bream longtime friends and associate of Britten and Pears. 

The first recording of these arrangements, was in 1963 for RCA. The arrangements were once again recorded in 1976 however, the guitar arrangements were modified for harp.

A further history and analysis of each song is provided of Volume Six in Fieldwork and Recordings alongside my own recording of the Sixth Book.

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Volume Five 

Sally in Our Alley

Ca' the yowes

Early one Morning

The Brisk Young Widow 

The Lincolnshire Poacher 

 

This collection of songs holds a much looser relation to the term 'folk' music. Neither Ca'the yowes or Sally in Our Alley are traditional folk songs. Being written in a classical form much later than their company within the volume. 

'The economy of means needed by Britten to make his point in the earlier folksong arrangements was remarkable. In the later sets his economy of gesture is even more striking, reflecting Britten’s world in the late 1950s. As Hugh Wood once remarked about them, ‘a cold wind is blowing over the garden’.
Foreman, Lewis. “Britten: Complete Folk Song Arrangements.” Hyperion Records, 1994, www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDA66941%2F2.

The arrangements in this book were spread over a much longer period. From between 1951-1959. With the premieres of the songs being divided through the Jubilee Hall at the Aldeburgh Festival and in the Mozartsaal Konzerthaus, Vienna. However they were all recorded between the years of 1954 NS 1961 for Decca. 

 

 

 

 

Volume Three:

  • 1. Come you not from Newcastle (Hullah's Song-Book English)
  • 2. O Waly, Waly (from Somerset Cecil Sharp)
  • 3. The Foggy Foggy Dew (from Suffolk)
  • 4. Sweet Polly Oliver (Old English Tune)
  • 5. The Miller of Dee (Hullah's Song-Book English)
  • 6. The Ploughboy (Tune by W.Shield)
  • 7. There's None to Soothe (Hullah's Song-Book Scottish)
 
This volume was dedicated to Joan Cross, the world famous soprano who worked very closely with Britten, especially through the success of The Rape of Lucrecia. These songs were mostly found and arranged from John Hullah's songbook, known for it's Scottish collections. However the world famous 'O Waly Waly', which hails from England and was collected by Cecil Sharpe. This is arguably the song most removed from it's traditional roots. 
While 'O Waly Waly' is a song that is primarily known through it's collection by Cecil Sharp. Evidence proves that the very original is a combination of two broadside ballads which were pieced together in Scotland and brought to Somerset to be finalised into the song that we know today.
 

 'Already in 1954 J. W. Allen - in a seminal article in the Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society (pp.161-171) - has compared the published version with the original field-recorded variants in the manuscripts and was able to show convincingly how Sharp had put together this song. He even identified one of the two broadside ballads in question.

The following text is an attempt at outlining the history and prehistory of "The Water Is Wide". Mr. Allen has laid the groundwork for any further examination of this problem with his article but I try to discuss it in a broader context. A couple of questions come to mind: why and how did the song collectors like Cecil Sharp edit their field-recorded texts for publication? What was their notion of authenticity? How did the anonymous writers of broadside ballads produce their texts? What did broadside writers and folklorists have in common? Why were so-called "floating verses" so important for the production of both broadside ballads and "Folk songs"? In fact this is a very fascinating story that shows how mutilated relics of ancient popular songs were reinterpreted as remainders of "old folk songs" and then – restored to honor and patched together to a new "old" song  - started a second, even more successful life'



Allen, J W. "The Water Is Wide" - The History of a "Folk Song". Accessed November 10, 2019. http://www.justanothertune.com/html/wateriswide.html.

 

 

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In 1940 Britten Britten Published an article in the American journal Modern Music on ‘England and the Folk-Art Problem’ in which he remarked:

The chief attractions of English folksongs are the sweetness of the melodies, the close connection between words and music, and the quiet uneventful charm of the atmosphere. This uneventfulness however is part of the weakness of the tunes, which seldom have any striking rhythms or memorable melodic features. Like much of the English countryside they creep into the affections rather than take them by storm'Britten, Benjamin, and Paul Francis. Kildea. Britten on Music. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

The Songs