English Nationalism

Question 1

What are the 3 main strands of English Nationalism? Which composers are associated with each?

Answer 1

1. Folk Song Revival - Vaughan Williams
2. Rediscovery of English Renaissance music - Michael Tippett
3. Tradition of English song - Ivor Gurney, George Butterworth

Question 2

Who was Cecil Sharp?

Answer 2

1859-1924
Founded the Folk Song Society in London in 1898 - other founders included Parry, Stanford, Grainger, Vaughan-Williams
Became interested in Morris dancing and founded the English Folk Dance Society to revive traditional dances
Taught and composed music

Question 3

Where/when/how did Cecil Sharp collect folk songs?

Answer 3

Began collecting folk songs in 1903 in Somerset and collected 1600 tunes from 350 singers.
‘Somerset Songs’ formed the core of his experience and theories (much like Bartok in 1904 in Hungary)

Question 4

What does England have that we could use for Nationalist music?

Answer 4

Amateur music tradition
Royalty, monarchy, patriotism
Renaissance music
Folk songs
Landscape

Question 5

Why was there a call for English Nationalist music at the turn of the 20th century?

Answer 5

There was a widespread perception that there had been no major British native composer since Purcell.

Question 6

Who was Ralph Vaughan Williams?

Answer 6

1872-1958
English composer - most important/prominent probably since Purcell
Versatile composer: 9 symphonies, concertos, choral works, stage works, ballets, songs, chamber music
Influenced by tudor music and folk tunes
Lectured on whether music should be national
Believed in the importance of amateur music-making

Question 7

What are the 4 strands of Vaughan Williams’ nationalistic music?

Answer 7

Religious/church
Folk
Original song
Opera
Settings of English text

Question 8

When/how did Vaughan Williams collect folk tunes?

Answer 8

Began collecting them in 1903 - teamed up with Gustav Holst
Used a similar method to Bartok in Hungary: phonograph recording, transcribed later.
Preserved an entire oral tradition that would otherwise have been lost when WWI brought an end to the way of life these songs represented.

Question 9

How was nationalism different in England and Hungary?

Answer 9

Collecting folk tunes was less forensic in England than Hungary
Nationalism was more comfortable and middle-class in England than in Eastern Europe; was not a political statement.

Question 10

How did folk influence Vaughan Williams’ music?

Answer 10

Began to make arrangements of the songs he collected.
Also used them as the basis for his own original compositions.
Strongly modal flavour was different from late Romantic, Germanic style of his teachers.
Gave him the means to make his sound distinctively English.

Question 11

What is ‘Bushes and Briars’?

Answer 11

Vaughan Williams collected this folk song in 1903
He ‘felt it was something he had known all his life’
He made two arrangements of it:
One for 4 unaccompanied male voices (2 tenors, 2 baritones)
One for unaccompanied mixed chorus

Question 12

What was Vaughan Williams keen to evoke?

Answer 12

The character of different parts of the English countryside, unlike Walton and Tippett.
His music created a sense of place
e.g. Norfolk Rhapsody (1905-6) - for full orchestra, based on folk songs he collected; each instrument plays a different role, evoking aspects of the countryside.

Question 13

Give some examples of Vaughan Williams’ church music

Answer 13

Set the lyrics of ‘Come down o Love Divine’ to a folk tune, ‘Down Ampney’ (where he was born) - 1905
‘Sine nomine’ (1906) - wrote a new tune and harmonisation for the hymn, ‘For all the saints’, originally written in 1864 - the walking bass represents the march of the saints. The tune’s title follows the Renaissance tradition of naming compositions ‘sine nomine’ if they were not settings of pre-existing tunes.
Also wrote a Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis (1925) for unaccompanied double choir and a Te Deum, emulating the sounds of English Renaissance polyphony but with a twist.

Question 14

How was Vaughan Williams involved with church music?

Answer 14

He was appointed the director and editor of the new Anglican hymn book, ‘The English Hymnal’ in 1906.
He sought out Latin hymns, comissioning English translations for their plainsong melodies and used plainsong notation.

Question 15

What did Vaughan Williams do with regard to original songs? Give examples of his songs

Answer 15

Set more than 80 poems for voice and piano accompaniment between 1894 and 1950
Linden Lea (1902)
Silent Noon (1904)
Songs of Travel (1905) - song cycle
He described his early songs as ‘more or less simple and popular in character.
Vaughan Williams wrote more songs for male voices than female.
‘Three Poems by Walt Whitman - a darker tone to these pieces

Question 16

Why did Elizabeth Lutyens describe the music of the English Pastoral school of composers as ‘cowpat music’?

Answer 16

In a lecture she gave in 1950s, referring to the ‘folky-wolky melodies on the cor anglais’
There was a feeling that folk tunes were fundementally un-symphonic and didn’t lend themselves to symphonic development.

Question 17

What is ‘Riders to the Sea’?

Answer 17

Opera by Vaughan Williams, written in 1927, premiered in 1937.
Tells of a woman whose husband and 4 of 6 suns have drowned. The 5th is found washed up on the shore and 6th is advised not to go out but does and falls off his horse into the sea.
More chromatic and modernist.
Uses musical effects to create a sense of place:
Offstage voices sound like mourners - haunting
Recitative and spare texture reflect the sense of everyday life and isolation
Offstage wind machine
Muted woodwind chords, triadic harmony appears strangest of all.
Orchestral effects e.g. timp rolls, tremolandi represent the wind and sea.
No folk song quotation but often a folk-like quality e.g. bassoon melody (solo and modal)

Question 18

What is ‘Dona Nobis Pacem’

Answer 18

Vaughan William’s 1936 anti-war cantata
Combination of secular and religious words with lines from Whitman/others juxtaposed with text from the Latin mass.
Anticipates a similar mixture of sacred/secular text in Britten’s War Reqiuem 25 years later.

Question 19

List as many works by Vaughan Williams that are pertinent to the topic.

Answer 19

1) Folk
Bushes and Briars
Tarry Trousers
Norfolk Rhapsody

2) Church
Down Ampney/Come down o Love Divine
Sine nomine/For all the Saints
Dona Nobis Pacem (not strictly religious)

3) Original compositions
Linden Lea
Silent Noon
Songs of Travel
Three Poems by Walt Whitman

4) Opera
Riders to the sea