The Classical Music Book

252

AND EVER WINGING

UP AND UP, OUR VALLEY

IS HIS GOLDEN CUP

THE LARK ASCENDING (1914–1920),

RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

T

he German domination of

English music in the late

19th century persuaded

two young English composers—

Vaughan Williams and his fellow

student Gustav Holst—that English

music needed a fresh start, free

from the influences of Beethoven,

Wagner, and Brahms. Vaughan

Williams’s work as a church

musician led him to explore the

unaccompanied choral works of

the 16th- and early 17th-century

English composers Thomas Tallis

and William Byrd, whose artistic

purity seemed to suggest a way

forward. This, in turn, led Vaughan

Williams and Holst to develop an

interest in folk music, which was

as much to do with social history

as music. The realization that

Britain’s Industrial Revolution had

The song of the skylark, a mere

speck in the sky in this work by David

Cox (1783–1859), delighted Vaughan

Williams. The soaring violin mimics

the bird’s ascent in the sky.

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

Folk songs and a national

music revival

BEFORE

1860 American scholar and

folklorist Francis James Child

publishes his collection of

English and Scottish Ballads.

1878 Dvorˇ ák’s first set of

Slavonic Dances, Op. 46,

include motifs and rhythms

from folk songs and dances.

1908 Bartók and Kodály visit

remote villages in Hungary

to collect Magyar folk songs;

Bartók writes For Children,

which includes 80 folk tunes.

AFTER

1926 Percy Grainger arranges

his Danish Folksongs Suite for

piano and orchestra.

1938–1939 Michael Tippett

writes his Concerto for Double

String Orchestra, which

includes some references to

British folk music.

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