Britten Folksongs and Their Traditional Counterparts

Phoebe Kirrage

Phoebe Kirrage Classical Singing Research Supervisor: Anna Scott Britten's Folksong Arrangements and Their Traditional Counterparts Question: How do the Britten Folksong arrangements relate to their traditional counterparts, with an emphasis on text? This research explores the relationship between traditional British folk songs and their Benjamin Britten counterparts. The function of this research is to create a new relationship between the original songs and their values and the impressions brought about by Britten through his edits. Primarily through harmonic arrangements, changes in melody and textual edits made by Britten. Both folk and classical music have been crucial components in my life and have shaped me as a performer. There have been a great number of folk songs and tunes arranged for classical music yet there is very little dialogue between the two styles. I have used a combination of my own fieldwork, interviews, rehearsals, recordings and historical research to create an in depth research into the differences made to the traditional songs by Britten in his arrangements. The final results have come to fruition in the creation of an in depth analysis of the differences between the arrangements and the songs, and a full recording of the sixth book of folk songs with guitar. The outcome is a combination of the two musical styles to create a new sound. A concert will follow in which the new arrangements will be performed in a space and atmosphere inspired by both classical and folk performance spaces. A noticeable difference in my classical performing has also come about through the research into storytelling and freeness in folk performance in combination with classical performance. Phoebe Kirrage is a British soprano, having previously studied Musicology at Royal Holloway University of London, she is now pursuing her masters degree in classical singing under the teaching of Noa Frenkel. Having sung from a very early age, Phoebe has had the privilege of performing in some of the UKs most prestigious performance venues, including The Royal Albert Hall and The Barbican. In the Netherlands Phoebe has had the opportunity to perform in spaces such has the Grote Zaal in TivoliVredenburg. Upcoming performances include Britten's Turn of the Screw and Psalm 42 by Mendelssohn.

Britten's Folksong Arrangements and Their Traditional Counterparts

Question: How do the Britten Folksong arrangements relate to their traditional counterparts, with an emphasis on text?

This research is about the relationship between traditional British folk songs and their Benjamin Britten arrangement counterparts. Singing them in the traditional style, the Britten arrangement, and then combining the two to create a new variation.

This is in order to create a new relationship between the original values of the songs and the impressions brought about by Britten through his edits. Primaily through harmonic arrangements, changes in melody and textual edits made by Britten.

I have been attending concerts and folk sessions, participating in both and recording in order to analyse my storytelling ability in classical and folk settings and how my relationship with text within classical singing will develop, I will be making recordings of these as I progress.

My research will culminate in a concert, combing elements of a traditional classical recital and a session, with a mix of my Britten/Traditional arrangements, traditional music and classical. Theoretical and historical research are being written in order to back up this performance, this includes a variety of interviews with professionals, field work into folk music and working alongside a pianist and guitarist over the summer in order to begin to really develop a new manner of performing the Britten folk song arrangements with more attention to the original intent and subtext of the folk songs. These songs are all folk songs that I have grown up with from a very young age and came to see them in a new light when I began to train classicaly. My love of folk music and the ease with which I find storytelling within my folk singing is a skill I want to bring to my classical singing, therefore by combining the two most important styles of music in my life I hope to enrich my performances in both disciplines.

The culmination of this research is a full recording of the Sixth Book, I have worked closely with Vito Vicar, a jazz guitarist. I wanted an unbiased musician with the technical ability and freeness to create my vision of a new method of performance. We have worked together since the spring of 2019, performing these songs in a variety of styles in a number of performance venues, for example in the De Groote Witte Arend Antwerpen.

The culmination of this research alonside future performances is a full recording of the Sixth Book. Originally the songs were to be recorded each three times, in the full folk style, the classical and the mixed. It was however decided that it was more important to create a full recording of the new arrangements in a much higher quality.

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