Ralph Vaughan Williams - English Folk Song Suite
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- Опубліковано 29 чер 2024
- This is an orchestral transcription by Gordon Jacob of the original piece and was performed by the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields conducted by Sir Neville Marriner.
1. March: Seventeen Come Sunday 0:00
2. Intermezzo: My Bonny Boy 3:21
3. March: Folk Songs from Somerset 6:40
Written in 1923, the English Folk Song Suite is one of English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams's most famous works for military band. Although it is commonly known by the title given above, it was actually published as "Folk Song Suite" - the title which is used on the score and parts. In 1924, the piece was arranged for full orchestra and later for brass band by Vaughan Williams' student Gordon Jacob, when the longer title was used, presumably with the composer's approval. It follows that performances and recordings by orchestras always use the later title, but those by wind bands as often use the original, shorter, title, even though bandsmen regularly talk of the "English Folk Song Suite".
The suite consists of three movements: March, Intermezzo and another March. The first march is called Seventeen Come Sunday, the Intermezzo is subtitled My Bonny Boy and the final movement is based on four Folk Songs from Somerset. Its premiere was given at Kneller Hall on July 4, 1923, conducted by Lt Hector Adkins. It originally had a fourth movement, Sea Songs, which was played second, but the composer removed it after the first performance and published it separately (interestingly, this included an orchestration by the composer himself, not one by Gordon Jacob).
We owe Vaughan-Williams and his contemporaries a huge debt for keeping these old folk tunes alive.
Everyone's talking about playing this in band while I'm just here listening to it for the first time.
Then allow me, as a former symphonic band member, to congratulate you on your excellent taste in music!
I never actually got to play it, but my bro did when I was in junior high.
I got to play it on Tuba
I woke up to this song today. In 15 years I have never once regretted having my alarm set to the local classical music station.
The most under rated of all English composers! It takes me back to my childhood , I can smell the grass feel the sunshine and almost recall the innocence of that age that is now tainted by living and "experience" I want this music in my ears as I leave this mortal coil, Englishness in its completeness.
With you sir.
Those things you remember when you hear this are immortal. The things that taint it are _not._ Take care, you'll have them again one day.
Yes tainted indeed by the age we live in
Vaughan Williams somehow manages to cross the bridge inbetween folk and classical effortlessly. Great piece of music.🙂
I was brought up in Bootle, Liverpool. It was an industrial area. Usually a cold & wet weather clime. But this music - often on BBC radio - had a magical uplifting effect on me. It transported me to an imaginary village of the mind, all comforting and warm. Then England was my England.
Long, long ago I was born in Liverpool but brought south when I was 2. I hope you've managed to "come South" and visited some of the Cotswold and Chiltern villages, not to mention such beauties as Sussex (where my paternal ancestors farmed for centuries). Different countryside to the North which in turn has many differences between the counties. The music in the south, like the countryside, is softer. We had to sing English Folk Songs in school in the 60s:)
I thought we were going East
@@ericparrish1515 We are. British culture is dead.
The emergence of "Pretty Caroline" from "Seventeen Come Sunday" in the first movement, with Pretty Caroline basically functioning as the trio, always gets me. It's so brilliant. Vaughan Williams had such a distinct way of doing things that his pieces are often instantly recognizable as his; his sound is so quintessentially English. I have been fortunate enough to have played this in band, orchestra, and even a brass band.
Or the moments of graingerian harmonic vocabulary that pokes it's head out once in a while....
Year after year, day after day -- I say it over and over again -- it does _not,_ ever get old.
I am from Poland. I just LOVE Ralph Vaughan WIlliam's music.
It would be a pleasure to meet Ralph and personally talk to him about why I love his music so much and the joy it's brought me in unfavorable sercumstances.
Tmnc
Djęnkuje
I'm playing this song my freshman year in my high school on clarinet and love it to bits! I love the first movement especially. Who else is with me?
Yep! And I'm a freshman too
KingPotato 9090 I played it last year as a freshman. 😁
I played it for orchestra on violin my freshman year too :D
we're playing it for our spring concert
I'm playing this in my fourth year of clarinet (grade 8). Im dead btw.
Woke up with the part at 1:05 in my head. Haven't played this for probably 16 years...
Sometimes when I was walking down the street of this busy city of Hong Kong, the Somerset melodies just randomly pop into my head.
Vaughan Williams arranged it into the hymn tune Kingsfold for the English Hymnal of 1906, after hearing the tune in Kingsfold, Sussex. That's how I first knew it.
It's not always in the back of your head?
@@vibraphonics : You probably know that Vaughan Williams was the editor of the (American) Episcopal Hymnal of 1940. Great compilation of hymn tunes including several of his own.
I haven't play this for 8 years, I love this part.(btw I am trombone)
R.I.P. flutes in the middle of the first movement. That part killed me my first year of wind ensemble in high school! I loved playing it though.
Guy ultimatecyberdog Guess who gets to play that now? HahahahahHhahahhahHAHAHHA UGH
Guy ultimatecyberdog it's been 30 years for me and I still remember how the sheet music looked!
Guy ultimatecyberdog And we just got the piece and I'm already dead playing it.
It gets easier with practice, but it never gets EASY. Although, I used to play it all the time, just for the fun of seeing if I could move my fingers fast enough. It's really exciting, when you get it right!
Glad I'm not on flute for this piece... those high notes look nasty!
In the late 60s, I had the great good fortune to play this wonderful piece under the benevolent direction of the late John B Robbins. What fine times we all had. What an extraordinary learning experience. The study of music touches your life in so ways. Enjoy your time in band and orchestra. Treasure every minute.
Michael Farmer woah cooool I play violin
I play trumpet 🎺
There is something this composer does to me... and it involves tears and an indescribable feeling of elation.
James right, his sea symphony and 5th symphony also make the same effect to me
James It just makes me think of the English countryside in the summer and Thomas Hardy novels set in rural Wessex for some reason. I often wonder if one can truly appreciate Vaughan Williams without being English.
TheAlb100 I tell you as well I get images of the sea, and especially the Cornish coast, customs runners and smugglers as well as all the great navy seaman who came from there. Truly evocative music.
TheAlb100 i love Holst and him, they are english and they use english music, i felt very interesting good when i listen them. the main emotions are elation, victory, hope, desire.
James
I heard this in School. Our music teacher played this to a class of 11 year olds in a brightly lit room due to the many windows. Outside where green fields and a woodland suddenly it became an ancient woodland and our imaginations left the room.
I just love how undoubtably English Vaughan-Williams' music is. Absolutely amazing
Amen
Viva la vida
Hear, hear! And yet how deeply emotional it is, given our equally stiff upper lip!
was he Welsh ?!?...I honestly don't know but the Williams mane is for sure
@@jockkent8787 He was born at Down Ampney, Gloucestershire on 12 October 1872. His fathers family were indeed Anglo Welsh, his mother was related to Josiah Wedgwood and Charles Darwin.
The greatest patriotic composer England has ever had.
Your cover picture's beautiful, any idea where I could find it?
The people saying it's "relatively easy" clearly do not play flute at bar 65... Literal hell.
Haha Rhiannon I totally agree 😂😂😂😂😂
True! True!
I totally agree ✋😂
Rhiannon Caswell as someone in a highschool band playing that right now, i am crying trying to practice it
ikill4fun23 Same here. We are performing it in one month on our band and choir tour to Banff, BC. It is pure torture! But once we get that tricky section learned it will sound amazing!
This brings back memories. I played Oboe in my College Wind Ensemble. I am 51 now and am revisiting some of the music that moved me back then. Memories of tours, concerts and private lessons, practice rooms and all the fun that band and music in general brings to us all. Thanks!
Congrats and Good Luck
Manny Tarango I just finished high school and I played oboe, this is one of my favourite pieces!
I recently lost motivation for all music and school. I’ve been going through a lot and decided to drop all my college courses (I am 19) I was talked into reenrolling and I still had no hope for the future. After reading this comment, I was brought to tears because it reminded me of why I started. Thank you for writing this, I’ll never forget it.
@@christianandwoofy I like it because it's no words. I'm not good with those.
As an oboist too, I feel like the Vaughan-Williams and the two Holst suites felt like the first decent oboe music in band. Played all of them in the 8th grade in my small high school…I was “promoted” to the senior high band because I was the only oboe player in the school district.
Just found this. It's the only song. I remember from the symphonic band when I was in junior high in the 1970s. I was humming it to my son, and he suggested UA-cam. The first movement and the oboe solo stole my heart!!! We performed this at All-state Band and earned superior ratings. I love this song.
I played this in my High School Symphony Band led by the late Larry Wallace at at Wheat Ridge High School in 1970….
When hearing a name called England , my heart throbs with its greatness and profound and dignified culture .
Prosperity and glory and saving grace of God that everlasting in England .
Greeting from mysterious Japan
Well thanks, and greetings back. But are you being serious? We English have a tendency to assume that anybody who praises us must be joking.
@@JJBushfan Sadly, mostly a younger generation's bad habit. Look to your history, and the price paid for our longivity as a free nation.AND---the huge positive mark we left on the world.
You're probably dreaming of a beautiful legend. All is lost and forever.........
Thank you for appreciating our culture.
@@JJBushfan
ありがとう‼️
Arigato ！
Sorry the very late reply ！
How is your country ？
Japan , especially Tokyo is cruel and hustle and bustle with the Coronavirus infection .
Don't be careless Be on the alert for Coronavirus infection .
By the way
I deeply love Verginia Woolf' works .
I am impressed by her works .
Shakespeare's 「Richard Ⅲ」and 「Macbeth 」is my favorite works .
I know the history or 「 Elizabeth Ⅰ 」.
So I deeply love and respect your great country .
Yesterday I have finished 「The Lost Paradise 」
This is great and overwhelming .
Take care of yourself
Good luck ！
Don't be careless
Be on the alert for Coronavirus infection .
Just talking or touching are infected .
Good luck ！
As a trombone, playing the third movement was rough, but SO fun! I miss it so much!!
Im 23 now and played this piece when I was 17 in highschool. I wish I would have appreciated how great of a song this was then as much as I do now. Thanks for the post.
Lovely childhood memories of my dad playing this on the record player in the 60s.
Vaughan Williams should be up with the best, I sang a lot these at school in the 1950s . Brings back memories .
A wonderful work of English Folklore . I cannot understand why anybody would not like this masterpiece, unless one was from Ireland.
What a ridiculous comment. The Irish love VW. I was playing this album for my Irish roommates from Boston in Madison WI a long time ago. We all loved it. 9:33
Whenever we play this, the second movement “My bonny boy” always makes me smile. It could have been written for my own bonny boy, four and a half at time of writing ❤️
I would just like to add a word about Gordon Jacob whose work on this orchestral transcription is truly wonderful.
The best piece of classical music ever written.
Absolutely brilliant. How could anybody not like this?
AS usual the great Neville Marriner gives an outstanding performance of a much loved work by RVW. Strange how this conductor, though obviously well known,doesn't received the accolades given to more "celebrity" names yet he is light years ahead of most of them in his deep understanding of the art of great music making.
I "discovered" this beautiful piece when I was a high school sophomore in 1962. I could probably still play it by memory but I had to give up my clarinet about 9 years ago and I sure miss it.
What happened?
You never truly forget music, the best part about it is that it just sticks with you. I’m sorry you gave up your beloved clarinet, but I believe you can play again one day :)
I like the English folk song suite! Rest in peace ✌️ Ralph Vaughan Williams! Blessings and hugs 🤗💞😂💘💘❤️😊❤️💕☺️🤗❤️💕💖🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏!
God rest Neville Marriner who died a few days ago!! At last, a version on UA-cam where "17 come Sunday" isn't being played at 100 miles an hour !! Played this as a Trumpeter in the Penzance Youth Wind band from 1977 to 1982 !!! Loved it then... Love it now!
I played this suite after 35 years absent from the Clarinet.
I was a clarinet major in college, kind of got lost for awhile.
Took at least a year to get most if it back, never lost my sound.
Just the language.
This selection in our community band just got the juices flowing again.
Then came Covid, the killer of more than life.
At about 6.37, an folk song I know some words to. 'Blow away the morning dew, The dew and the dew, Blow away the morning dew, How sweet the wind doth blow." When I was 6 or 7, my Dad had a studio built, my sister and I used the cement foundations as a stage, and we'd do a dance and sing the song as we danced. Haven't heard it in years!
A lovely story--thank you.
Many thanks Philip. X
English Folk Song Suite is an amazing piece.
I really have to give it to Williams.
Only Sousa knows how to not give the Horn melody.
Ever.
Great piece, though.
One day my band director decided to sight read 6+ marches by Sousa to find one he liked.
As a horn player I still have nightmares about that day
+M. Spira In Symphony #3, he used a flugelhorn :)
I'm guessing the baritone/euphonium players were ecstatic.
John Ries yes they are 😂 including me
I'm an oboist and we're playing this in our band. I love the challenge of Seventeen Come Sunday and the spotlight of My Bonny Boy!
Still my favorite concert band piece to play! I've played it at least 3 different times on clarinet 2, clarinet 1 and bass clarinet! Love Williams!
Nice, fellow Bass Clarinet! I do play them all, though
I love this suite by Ralph Vaughan Williams [orchestrated here by Gordon Jacob, passed away on the 8/6/1984 at the age of 88], especially I like the third movement called the March: Folk Songs From Somerset, which became a signature tune for a TV series called Farming Diary for Anglia TV. A great performance from Sir Neville Marriner [who would`ve been 100 on the 15/4/2024] conducting the Academy of St. Martin In The Fields. A Great Recording. 😊😇💯❤♋
Nearly went deaf after playing this on the piccolo
+Abbie Smithson I recommend those special musicians ear-plugs!
+Marcus Hicks I have to learn this entire piece on piccolo in less than a week!!
+alwik I have to learn the first movement for our concert in two weeks on piccolo RIP
Me too!
Me too lmao
I absolutely love the bassoon part for this suite! It does high, it does sustained and it does bassy too. Sends shivers down my spine every time :3
hi friend, The learning part of playing music is always the most fun, and sometimes challenging.
I play bassoon
Body's aching all the time ? 😁
Especially 2nd bassoon. Such a low part :)
I came across this about 3 months while I was doing data analysis, and letting a collection vaughan wlliams run at the background. All of sudden I was caught up by this SPECIFIC one. I stopped my work, went back to the track, and figured the name of the piece out. Then I learned this (as a violinist) in my spare time. I played this to one of my friends and her roommate yesterday to celebrate 2022 new year. They liked it so much, almost started dancing to it! Haha! Proud of my music appreciation (being able to identify a masterpiece subconciously during work)!
It took VW decades of learning to pack so much beauty into these 10+ minutes.
This is one reason he remains known worldwide simply by his surname.
I love this piece! We are playing it in band this year, this is my second time playing it (first in a concert). Last time I played it was as a freshman so I had a pretty low part but now I'm a senior and playing the 1st cornet part with all the solos and it's a lot of fun. When I was a freshman, I looked up all the solos and learned how to play them. My friends and I listened to (and conducted)(like the nerds we are) this piece all the time. It's one of my favorites! Definitely helpful to sit and listen to it if you are playing it (as with most things).
+Nadine Morgan I played this song freshman year! Second clarinet over here, the song is a bit tricky but awesome!!
+Kathleen M yessss!! I have 1st part on clarinet we barley got this song yesterday ;)
Thanks Nadine, your words keep this alive.
Whenever I hear the first piece I have intense visions of Sailors dancing around doing a cross between Irish dancing and the hornpipe, Perhaps I did see this as a child on TV and half forgot it. It fills me with joy.
I think it's the sound of traditional English music that he incorporates into his music, that I luv.
We danced to English folk dances at school and I'm 75.
I played this in my freshman year of college.
...I played the triangle part.
One of the first songs we played in college Wind Symphony and I can't help but think of everyone in the band every time I play it
I was fortunate enough to play the solo in Intermezzo played on violin in this recording, but I did it on clarinet. It was my first exposed solo and I was so incredibly nervous especially since our first performance was a competition. This piece makes me remember that day and how it was the start to get me out of my shell and better at doing solos.
Played this in the high school orchestra in New Zealand, twice. Definitely my favourite suite that I've played.
Vaughan Williams captures the spirit of Britain in this piece!
England.
This is great music along with the two Holst Suites.
Gordon Jacob's arrangement is brilliant: exactly what RVW would have done, if he had had the time or inclination. So good, in fact, that most people have no idea that it was not done by RVW. I have always loved this suite, in both its forms.
The third segment 'March Folk Songs from Somerset' always reminds me of when Anglia T.V's 'Farming Diary' was on the T.V on Sunday Mornings back in the Late 70's/Early 80's.
I have played this piece many times over the years. It is such great band literature. I remember learning this piece a long time ago when I was in high school. I played the flute or piccolo part. It is pretty challenging especially starting around 1 minute. I remember practicing it so much as it was so challenging. As I listen to it now I find myself fingering it. I still remember it, after all these years. I guess it was so engrained in me from practicing it and also playing it so many times. There is a reason that it is a standard for band literature.
DAT SOLO CLARINET YAAAASSSS
I'm so sad we aren't playing this for our next concert, but all the same, I loved playing it the couple of times that I did play it. :D
Playing this next month as part of our 'last night of the proms' concert and to the piccolo's flutes and oboes out there i totally understand your pain. As a 1st violin, this piece is a whole new fresh level of hell!
Ralph Vaughan Williams:Angol népdal Szvit
1.Induló:Tizenhét jön vasárnap (Allegro) 00:00
2.Intermezzo:Az én Bonny Boyom (Andantino) 03:21
3.Induló: Somerset népdalok (Allegro) 06:40
Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields
Vezényel:Sir Neville Marriner
R.V. Williams creates such an amazing atmosphere. I love his way how he developed melodies and themes . One of the good old great masters!
One of those never-tiring things. Love the first segment--and the third. So good to hear High Germany. What a tune!
This as English as English can be...beautiful music...
When i hear this music i envision a bright green English country side on a fine summer day, and a couple of playful fox cubs and their watchful mother leaping across the swaying grass hills in frolic and play.
What a delightful vision!
It makes me think of Christmas in Victorian-era London.
Either way, both beautiful visions. Cheers!
Wow! One vision of rural mid summer and another of urban mid winter. But, hey, both ways it give me goose bumps! Thank you Mckenzie and Akirak. It just shows how art can touch us all in different ways yet still be valid.
akirak
Now that you put that image in my head, i agree... both work for me :)
LOL, UA-cam the home of 'hate etc' messages, yet we seem to be forming a mutual appreciation society! That is soooo cool! Thanks to you guys and to Ralph V Williams, of course.
My god, the middle of the first movement is a killer for flutes... all those high notes! I'm dead every time after playing this.
Playing the first song in my spring concert. 2nd chair flute and the only one that knows how to play it. Wish we were playing the entire piece so beautifully written.
We're performing this in my band. I'm so excited!
playing first flute in school band and second in symphony . . . rip
Played piccolo on this in high school, which was over 15 years ago -- wow, the nostalgia I had as soon as I heard it again!
anoramactir 16 y/o hearing music from 4 years ago is enough for me can't imagine 15
Ay i play that now ^^
Played this piece for one of my British school of music Clarinet Exams and nailed it !! Lovely piece !
Playing this in band next week. Super excited.
Hope it went well Liam
Go clarinets!! Woo!
this was so much fun to play on clarinet
I know
I agree, I played this on clarinet, bass clarinet, and contrabass, way back in high school 40 years ago. More recently I've been slowly trying to figure out pieces of it from memory on electric bass guitar. :) (Hearing it again sure helps, even have sheet music now, if I can remember how to read it.) :)
Alex Phipps yas
I played bass clarinet in high school and loved this piece :D Used to hum the melody all the time.
As a 1st Tenor player, going from G to lowest Bb as a bass during an absolutely perfect trumpet choir just sends chills down my spine for the rest of the 3rd Movement
Love the 2nd movement..... the strings really make it special 😊
I play clarinet and have had the pleasure of playing this piece. It's so much fun and it sounds amazing!
Perfect,
Thank you.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Fortunate indeed was I in the late 60s. Under the inspired direction of the late, great John B Robbins we played this magnificent piece of music. Fine friendships were forged amidst the heat of his demanding leadership. Thank you, MasterDecoder for these memories
i umm dont listen to classic music often, but this shows me why i should do more often!
awesome
This is a monster piece. I'm playing it on second trombone for my High school Symphonic winds ensemble.
Im doing the same, but lead cornet instead of trombone, our version has it doing all the oboe solos and whatnot
Same! We have the original score before the most updated version.
i am playing 3rd clarinet it is an amazing i love 1st movement
I hate the first movement and 3rd movement. the huge low brass section starting at measure 65 and then the low brass again in movement 3 with the melody. Other than that, I love it.
I've got 1st Trumpet
Everybody in my band absolutely loves this song. It's so great. I had the timpani part, so I only played for a few measures in the second movement, but I still enjoyed it because this song is so awesome.
Emily B. Yeeeeeeees same I have it here in front of me rn
This is honestly one of my favorite pieces of music. I loved playing it in band!
I would love to play this work again. Perfection.
playing this piece in contest never loved playing the oboe more
I love this piece, both in the original concert band version as well as this one. It's a fine piece in that it is relatively easy for less experienced players to perform, yet it sounds really good, not like Vaughan Williams was "writing down". I love the second movement. It has a nice cello part!
The trio in the third movement has my heart ❤
My mother and dad had the album and I loved listening to it as well.
Can i just say Brilliant.
My school band is going to play all the songs when we go to Carnegie Hall
What wonderful music this is. I was lucky enough to play this in the late 60s under the benevolent direction of John B Robbins. Fine memories. One and all. Thank you MasterDecoder. Thank you very much indeed
Thanks a lot for this wonderful and evocative piece of music.
Ahhhh the wonderful Vaughan Williams... My other half has played many of these tunes during his life in Military banding... '16 come Sunday' is one in particular which has stayed with him... When we heard this piece together for the first time over 30 years ago, I loved it too... It is still a firm favourite of ours..
Many many thanks for posting this, oh and as a Brass player still the 'Boosey & Hawkes' score picture made him chuckle too ...
Best regards and wishes from Wales .. :0)x
Not to seem rude, but it is actually 17 come Saturday. I'm playing it in band, quite an enjoyable piece.
Oh , okay thanks for the correction... Still a brilliant piece of music tho'..
What's a year between Vaughan Williams fans eh... :0)x
Henry Bray Hiya Henry , I just 'googed' the piece and I got bit wrong but so did you too ... Oops .. It is actually called '17 come Sunday', so I got the day right and you got the age right... Still listening and enjoying it..
Best regards from Wales .. ;0)x
Sally Ann Loveday Thanks for telling me, good fortunes from the US.
This piece has an adventures kind feel to it, the first 3 minutes..
+Mike Patton reminds me of covered wagons
I love this music. I'm reading all the old comments here and so many people talk about how they "used to play" this wonderful music back in their school days. Why did you all stop playing? I started playing clarinet and T-sax back in high school followed by college and after that I joined a community band. I'm now 65, I am not a talented musician, but I have never stop playing. Find a local community band, never give up making music! Band=Fun!
Excellent---one of the best, tight and compact, perfect timing.
Proud to be English, Proud to be British.
poor british ,ur country going to be ruled under muslims lol
No mate we're taking it back, remember Speakers Corner Tommy Robinson
@ Kam Cheun So. Go away you yellow, slitty eyed fuckwit.
Racism is not the reason the British Empire fell
beautifull history and music. im hope, you will not lost your culture by multiculturalism
:51-1:00 always gets me and overwhelms me with emotion idk why. I just get really into it when I play This section
Lovely! Upbeat!! Thank you for posting!!
Best piece of classical music I've ever heard.
Carnegie hall was fun and New York itself. Our band played good in Carnegie Hall, glad the pressure is off now
Played good. Go back to school.
It's supposed to be "played well"
The Blue Devil From Heaven, last time I checked there are no devils in heaven... right now
Playing the Piccolo part freshmen year of high school was a pain in the first movement but it was fun
love the trombones in the third movement. Played this last semester in my wind ensemble
I love this song so much. I'm glad my band is playing it