Vaughan Williams’s Journey into Folk
This project ran from December 2021-January 2023, in celebration of Vaughan Williams’s 150th anniversary in 2022. You can still follow his folk song collecting journey during 1903 - 1905 in the archived posts, and experience many of the melodies that influenced his future composition.
This project followed renowned British composer, Ralph Vaughan Williams, on the first year of his listening journey into folk song. Subscribers were able to experience in real time the cumulative effect of the strange and bewitching melodies Vaughan Williams collected in the order and timeframe that he heard them. You can still hear me sing the first verse of a song on the day he collected it in the archived posts - circa forty days between December 1903 and January 1905 - supported by info on the original singers, why and how Vaughan Williams came to meet them, background on the songs and the stories they tell.
From the first song he collected in December 1903 – ‘Bushes and Briars’ – to the moment he heard ‘The Captain’s Apprentice’ in January 1905, Ralph Vaughan Williams immersed himself in the most intense period of folk song collecting of his life. By the end of it he had written down over 250 songs. These melodies had a profound impact on the direction of his composition in the first years of the 20th century.
Folk music was an oral/aural tradition – subtleties of performance were usually learnt by ear and passed on by mouth. Edwardian song collectors believed that young people, mesmerised by music halls, were no longer interested in learning old ballads, and that the old folk who held the songs in their heads would soon be dead: if the songs were not written down immediately, they would be lost forever. That’s why Vaughan Williams described himself as like ‘…a psychical researcher who has actually seen a ghost’.
Although phonographic machines were available, they were cumbersome and the wax cylinders delicate - recordings have not survived well. Notepads and pens were the most convenient method for getting songs down. We are left with black and white versions - outlines of songs we might otherwise not know, but which have lost the colour of personal performance. As a means of exploring both the limitations and the value of this written record I’ve resisted the temptation to add trills and ornamentation, and have sung the songs unadorned, to reflect as well as I can the information that Vaughan Williams wrote down and which he believed would be all that remained.
How did I choose the songs?
My choice of song for each date was made easy on the few days Vaughan Williams wrote down only one song. When more than one was available my selection criteria ran in this order:
Did Vaughan Williams supply the words? Quite often he would only write the tune. He would suggest references to printed publications for the full set of lyrics but, usually, several versions are available which makes it hard to choose what to include. I decided to stick to what was available from his manuscripts. Most of the time he supplied the words for only the first verse and (with one or two forced exceptions) that’s what I sing here.
Were the words and musical notation legible? Vaughan Williams’s handwriting is notoriously difficult to read, and sometimes his musical notation – often written in a hurry – is also uncertain. I tried to find notation which I felt was clear enough to sing with confidence
Did Vaughan Williams supply interesting background on the singer or the song?
Was there other interesting background information available about the song or the singer?
Had I previously chosen a song by the same singer? If so I would try to select one by someone else
Could I sing it?
Vaughan Williams didn’t always date his manuscript notes in detail. Usually he would date the first entry for the day with the implication that the following undated pages in his notebook were included on that day - until the next dated page. For the undated pages I’ve relied on the information available from the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library online. Sometimes the composer gave just the month and year. Where I’ve felt I could accurately identify the date of these entries – usually by matching his location to the date from other sources – I’ve included a song. Where this wasn’t possible, I’ve left them out. I’m particularly sad to omit ‘The Bailiff’s Daughter’ sung by Mr Adams and his daughter at some point in September 1904 – a lovely tune…
Caroline Davison
Sources
I used the amazing online resources of the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library (VWML) to access Vaughan Williams’s original manuscripts and other material. A link to the relevant online page is given for each song. The Roud Number is also given – this refers to The Roud Folk Song Index, a database of references to around 25,000 songs collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world, available online at the VWML.
This project was put together during the Covid19 pandemic which has made it difficult to check primary sources, such as Vaughan Williams’s actual notebooks, as I would normally do. I hope inaccuracies as a result of this are minimal.
Other useful sources
Cubbin, Sue That Precious Legacy: Ralph Vaughan Williams and Essex Folksong Essex County Council 2006 – particularly for corrections of singers’ surnames.
Dineen, Frank Ralph’s People: The Ingrave Secret Albion Music 2001
Journal of the Folk-Song Society – particularly Vol. 1, No. 3 (1901); and Vol.2, No. 7 (1905) and No. 8 (1906)
Kennedy, Michael The Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams OUP 1964
Kidson, Frank Traditional Tunes: A Collection of Ballad Airs Oxford 1891
mainlynorfolk.info/folk/songs/ - good source for full sets of lyrics
Palmer, Roy Bushes and Briars: Folk Songs collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams Llanerch Publishers 1999
Roud, Steve & Bishop, Julia (eds) The New Penguin Book of English Folks Songs London 2014
Vaughan Williams, Ursula RVW: A Biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams OUP 1964