Butterworth, George

All

Butterworth, George

Eleven Songs From “A Shropshire Lad“, containing: Six Songs From A Shropshire Lad, Bredon Hill and Other Songs (Vocal score). Original version for voice & piano. Includes rehearsal marks and details of orchestration consistent with Phillip Brookes’ arrangement for voice & orchestra

29,00 

George Sainton Kaye Butterworth
(b. London, 12 July 1885 — d. near Thiepval, Northern France)

Eleven Songs From A Shropshire Lad, Bredon Hill and Other Songs (Vocal Score)

Original version for voice & piano. Includes rehearsal marks and details of orchestration consistent with Phillip Brookes’ arrangement for voice & orchestra

For more information you may read the preface to the full score Score No. 717 (Vol. 3, Butterworth vocal works):

Vocal works

Six Songs From A Shropshire Lad
Bredon Hill And Other Songs
On Christmas Night
We Get Up In The Morn
In The Highlands
Haste On, My joys!
I Will Make You Brooches
I Fear Thy Kisses
Requiescat
Folk Songs From Sussex

The Life of George Butterworth
George Butterworth was one of Britain’s finest musicians during the years leading up to World War One, a conflict which tragically claimed his life. As a composer, he wrote exquisite music for the orchestra in addition to moving and poignant songs, especially to words by A. E. Housman. He was also an important figure in the folksong revival and one of the most talented morris-dancers (folk-dancers) of his day, being responsible for preserving many ancient dances.

He was born in London on 12 July 1885, the son of a lawyer, although he grew up in York (his father was manager of the North-East Railway at the time), before entering Eton and Trinity College, Oxford, where he read Greats (Classics). It was at Eton that he began to show musical promise, producing several compositions that were played by the school orchestra, particularly a Barcarolle for orchestra, long since lost. At Oxford, he made friends with the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, Adrian Boult (conductor and founder of the BBC Symphony Orchestra) and Hugh Allen (later director of the Royal College of Music).

He joined the newly formed Folk Song Society in 1906 and enthusiastically embraced the fashion for collecting folk songs throughout Britain. He was responsible for preserving about 300 songs – fewer than Vaughan Williams, Grainger or Holst, but still significant. He was music critic for The Times for a short time, and music master at Radley College, Oxfordshire, where he was best remembered for his skill as a cricketer! It was during this time that he began to compose his Shropshire Lad songs.
He entered the Royal College of Music in 1910, but left before he had completed a full year. He concentrated instead on folk dancing, becoming in effect a ›professional‹ morris dancer (almost the only one there has ever been). The archives of the English Folk Dance and Song Society include film footage of Butterworth, with Cecil Sharp and Maud Karpeles, performing folk dances. He travelled widely, demonstrating the technique of folk dancing, and published books of dances.

Music nevertheless remained the backdrop to all these interests. His output was never high (he was a fastidious composer, who habitually revised his work), but he completed more music than we now know. When war broke out in August 1914, Butterworth volunteered to join Kitchener’s ›New Army‹ and began to set out the stall of his life’s work; in the process, he probably destroyed several early works, including the Barcarolle.

 

Read more / Mehr lesen > HERE

Score No.

Special Edition

Genre

Size

Printing

Specifics

You may also like…

  • Butterworth, George

    Vocal works / Volume 3 : Six Songs from  A Shropshire Lad, Bredon Hill / other Songs, Folk Songs from Sussex & more (revised and expanded edition, 2022 / new print)

    29,00 
    No. 717
Go to Top