Tonight’s Music

Thomas Arne (1710–1778)

arr. Adrian Wagner

Thomas Arne (1710–1778) composed Rule, Britannia! in 1740 for Alfred, a masque celebrating King Alfred the Great. The song arrived as Britain was building the naval strength that would define it for the next two centuries, and its refrain, "Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves," captured that ambition exactly. It soon eclipsed the masque for which it was written and became closely identified with the Royal Navy. Although the Navy's official march is Heart of Oak, Rule, Britannia! has long served as its unofficial anthem and is still performed regularly by the bands of the Royal Marines. It is equally beloved beyond the Navy as a fixture of the Last Night of the Proms, the closing concert of London's annual summer festival. The sea returns after intermission in Vaughan Williams's Sea Songs, which honors one of the Royal Navy's own commanders.

The tune drew the attention of later composers as well. Beethoven wrote a set of piano variations on it, and Richard Wagner based a concert overture upon it. The text is by the Scottish poet James Thomson, the first of two Scottish poets represented on this program.

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958)

arr. Jari Villanueva

I. March: “Seventeen Come Sunday”

II. Intermezzo: “My Bonny Boy”

III. March: “Folk Songs from Somerset”

Ralph Vaughan Williams was among the most dedicated collectors of English folk songs in the early twentieth century. Traveling through rural England, he transcribed hundreds of songs from farmers, fishermen and village singers, preserving music that had survived for generations through oral tradition alone.

The English Folk Song Suite, composed in 1923 for military band, draws directly on that work. It premiered that year at the Royal Military School of Music and remains a cornerstone of the wind band repertoire.

The opening march, Seventeen Come Sunday, sets its title tune alongside Pretty Caroline and Dives and Lazarus, the last of which Vaughan Williams returned to throughout his life. My Bonny Boy, a lament of lost love, frames a lighter dance episode built on the tune Green Bushes. The finale, Folk Songs from Somerset, gathers several West Country songs, among them Blow Away the Morning Dew and John Barleycorn, whose title character personifies the barley harvest and the ale brewed from it.

As originally conceived, the suite contained four movements, with a march titled Sea Songs placed second. Vaughan Williams later removed it and published it as a separate work. The movement is not absent from this evening's concert, however. Sea Songs opens the second half of this program.

Gustav Holst (1874–1934)

arr. Jerry Nowak

Gustav Holst, best known today for The Planets, began his career as a professional trombonist, performing in opera and theater orchestras while establishing himself as a composer. His practical command of brass writing is evident throughout the Second Suite.

Holst and Vaughan Williams met as students at the Royal College of Music in 1895 and remained close friends for life. They held regular "field days" at which each played his newest work for the other and offered candid criticism. Both shared a deep interest in English folk song, and both were among the first major composers to write seriously for wind and brass bands.

That band tradition runs deep in Britain. During the nineteenth century, mills, collieries and factories across northern England sponsored brass bands made up of their own workers. Many survive today, among them the Black Dyke Band, founded at a Yorkshire wool mill in 1855. These bands compete in national championships, each requiring a newly commissioned test piece. Holst contributed A Moorside Suite to the 1928 National Brass Band Championships, and Vaughan Williams and Malcolm Arnold later wrote for the same competition. Notably, the traditional British brass band includes neither trumpets nor French horns, relying instead on cornets, tenor horns, euphoniums and related instruments.

Composed in 1911 but not performed until 1922, the Second Suite in F is built entirely on folk material. The opening March presents three tunes in turn: a Morris dance, the sea song Swansea Town, and the love song Claudy Banks. Song Without Words is a tender, lyrical setting of the folk song I'll Love My Love. Song of the Blacksmith, based on A Blacksmith Courted Me, is rhythmically intricate and percussive; the original band scoring calls for an anvil.

The closing Fantasia on the Dargason sets a whirling sixteenth-century country dance against the melody of Greensleeves, combining the two in counterpoint. Holst later reused this movement as the finale of his St Paul's Suite for strings, written for St Paul's Girls' School, where he directed music for nearly thirty years.The English Folk Song Suite, composed in 1923 for military band, draws directly on that work. It premiered that year at the Royal Military School of Music and remains a cornerstone of the wind band repertoire.

The opening march, Seventeen Come Sunday, sets its title tune alongside Pretty Caroline and Dives and Lazarus, the last of which Vaughan Williams returned to throughout his life. My Bonny Boy, a lament of lost love, frames a lighter dance episode built on the tune Green Bushes. The finale, Folk Songs from Somerset, gathers several West Country songs, among them Blow Away the Morning Dew and John Barleycorn, whose title character personifies the barley harvest and the ale brewed from it.

As originally conceived, the suite contained four movements, with a march titled Sea Songs placed second. Vaughan Williams later removed it and published it as a separate work. The movement is not absent from this evening's concert, however. Sea Songs opens the second half of this program.

During intermission, treat yourself to another drink from our bartender, Al—and don’t forget to show him some love with a tip.

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958)

arr. Lawrence David Eden

Sea Songs is the movement Vaughan Williams removed from the English Folk Song Suite, heard here in its rightful company. Issued separately as a quick march, it combines three traditional tunes associated with the sea: Princess Royal, Admiral Benbow and Portsmouth. Admiral Benbow commemorates a Royal Navy commander who, in 1702, continued to direct his ship in battle after his leg was shattered by enemy fire. The march is compact and vigorous, with a contrasting trio before the opening material returns.

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958)

arr. Lawrence David Eden

The program turns next to Wales, long celebrated for its choral tradition. Rhosymedre is a hymn tune by John David Edwards (1805–1885), named for the village near Wrexham where he served as vicar. Vaughan Williams arranged it for organ in 1920 as the second of his Three Preludes on Welsh Hymn Tunes. The hymn melody unfolds in long, sustained notes while the surrounding voices move in a gentle, flowing line around it. The prelude has since been arranged for many ensembles and is frequently heard at weddings and services.

Hymnody was as central to Vaughan Williams's career as folk song. He served as music editor of The English Hymnal (1906), a project that occupied him for two years and shaped congregational singing in England for much of the century. Vaughan Williams was also a great-nephew of Charles Darwin.

Traditional Scottish Melody

arr. Matt Kingston

The program concludes its tour in Scotland. Robert Burns (1759–1796), Scotland's national poet, published My Love Is Like a Red, Red Rose in 1794, adapting it from a traditional song he had collected. Its vow of devotion "till a' the seas gang dry" has made it a perennial favorite at Scottish weddings and Burns Night celebrations, and Bob Dylan has cited it as the lyric that most influenced his life.

Like Vaughan Williams, Burns was a dedicated collector who preserved hundreds of traditional songs, among them Auld Lang Syne, now sung around the world each New Year's Eve. With Burns, the program returns to the Scottish poetry with which it began in James Thomson's text for Rule, Britannia!

Malcolm Arnold (1921–2006)

I. Allegro Vivace

II. Chaconne

III. Con Brio

Malcolm Arnold was principal trumpet of the London Philharmonic Orchestra before devoting himself fully to composition. He went on to write more than 100 film scores, winning an Academy Award for The Bridge on the River Kwai, alongside nine symphonies and a substantial body of music for wind and brass band.

Like Holst, Arnold wrote for brass from the perspective of a performer. His Brass Quintet No. 1 was composed in 1961 for the New York Brass Quintet, one of the first professional ensembles of its kind, and it has since become a staple of the repertoire.

Arnold was also known for his irrepressible humor. For the 1956 Hoffnung Music Festival, a celebrated evening of musical comedy, he composed A Grand, Grand Overture, scored for orchestra, three vacuum cleaners and a floor polisher.

The same wit animates this quintet, cast in three movements. The opening Allegro vivace is energetic and conversational, with ideas passed rapidly among the five instruments. The central Chaconne unfolds over a repeating bass line, building in intensity before receding into a darker, more introspective mood. The finale, marked Con brio, is brisk and brilliant, full of rhythmic surprises, and brings the program to a spirited close.

Like Vaughan Williams, Burns was a dedicated collector who preserved hundreds of traditional songs, among them Auld Lang Syne, now sung around the world each New Year's Eve. With Burns, the program returns to the Scottish poetry with which it began in James Thomson's text for Rule, Britannia!