Shropshire Lad Songs

[Pabmusic]

The Royal Academy of Music will give a performance of my orchestration of these songs on February 13th, conducted by Mark Elder and sung by Henry Neill. This will be the sixth performance and the second in the UK, but again they're only doing 'the' six songs. (Butterworth was quite 'green' when he let Augener's persuade him to publish the 11 songs in two sets. Perhaps it was a mistake.)

The first three performances in 2008 (one in Mons and two in Vilnius) gave all the songs, but I never heard those.

Here's the announcement:

http://www.ram.ac.uk/events?event_id=3084

[BBMmk2]

Thanks for the thumbs up on this Pabs! Will try and go to this.

[amateur51]

The Royal Academy of Music will give a performance of my orchestration of these songs on February 13th, conducted by Mark Elder and sung by Henry Neill. This will be the sixth performance and the second in the UK, but again they're only doing 'the' six songs. (Butterworth was quite 'green' when he let Augener's persuade him to publish the 11 songs in two sets. Perhaps it was a mistake.)

The first three performances in 2008 (one in Mons and two in Vilnius) gave all the songs, but I never heard those.

Here's the announcement:

http://www.ram.ac.uk/events?event_id=3084

Already in my diary Pabs

[french frank]

And congratulations - any 'connection' between the recent Proms performance and this latest one ?

[Oliver]

My tutor at Oxford was a Housman scholar and he inspired me to read and re-read not just A Shropshire Lad but the later poems, too. Much as I enjoy Butterworth's settings, I much prefer Moeran's. They are not as well-known as they should be. One of them, "The Lads in their Hundreds..." is particularly moving with its sad little piano echoes to the lines about "the lads" never returning to Ludlow. It is amazing how poems written at the end of the 19th Century seem to forsee the events of 1914-18.

I urge everyone to give Moeran's settings a hearing.

[gurnemanz]

I really enjoyed the Prom on TV. We've seen Roderick Williams three times recently and he is certainly one of our artists of the moment. I note he's on the enticing-looking 2CD Moeran song issue on Chandos. Thanks for the tip, Oliver. Apart from a couple of Moeran songs on this good Pears anthology, I don't know any of them and can feel the plastic card twitching.

[Pabmusic]

And congratulations - any 'connection' between the recent Proms performance and this latest one ?

I think so, because it seems that Mark Elder insisted on doing the songs in the same version they'd used at the Proms. The RAM have bought (not hired) the set of all 11 songs as well, so that bodes well for the future.

They were also done in Ottawa in November - good concert withe RVW's Dona Nobis Pacem and some specially commissioned music from a Canadian. David John Pike was the singer (excellent - 'bigger' sound than Roddy Williams; more Benjamin Luxon).

[french frank]

I think so, because it seems that Mark Elder insisted on doing the songs in the same version they'd used at the Proms.

I had to look up the Proms conductor (Andrew Manze) but thought Mark Elder had probably quite liked what he heard!

[Pabmusic]

I had to look up the Proms conductor (Andrew Manze) but thought Mark Elder had probably quite liked what he heard!

Yes. I know nothing of it, of course, but the fact that he insisted on this version, wanted Roddy Williams (who was very complimentary about the orchestration, but was otherwise booked as it happened) and can get to know it through rehearsals with the RAM rather than a professional band does raise some hopes.

[Pabmusic]

My tutor at Oxford was a Housman scholar and he inspired me to read and re-read not just A Shropshire Lad but the later poems, too. Much as I enjoy Butterworth's settings, I much prefer Moeran's. They are not as well-known as they should be. One of them, "The Lads in their Hundreds..." is particularly moving with its sad little piano echoes to the lines about "the lads" never returning to Ludlow. It is amazing how poems written at the end of the 19th Century seem to forsee the events of 1914-18.

I urge everyone to give Moeran's settings a hearing.

The Moeran's lovely. The Butterworth are better known because of their composer's death, I suspect (though they had received many performances before the war. The most intriguing perhaps was the second (or possibly third) sung by Adrian Boult accompanied by Hugh Allen).

[Keraulophone]

Roderick Williams made a characteristically fine contribution to your very apt orchestrations of the six songs at the Proms. While renting a holiday cottage in those parts recently, I had to pay a visit to Housman's ashes, in the rear north wall of Ludlow parish church, as I couldn't get the Butterworth settings out of my head, especially 'The Lads'. Only when approaching Wenlock Edge did VW take over. It may be stating the obvious, but the power of landscape to evoke music and poetry can take you by surprise when you're actually walking across it.

[Pabmusic]

...It may be stating the obvious, but the power of landscape to evoke music and poetry can take you by surprise when you're actually walking across it.

I lived for 21 years in Scrobbesbyrigscir (Shrewsbury-shire) and wholeheartedly agree. I miss it often.