A Shropshire Lad

Quick Facts

• An orchestral rhapsody written in 1912 based on the collection of poetry by A. E. Housman
• First performed at the 1913 Leeds Festival conducted by Arthur Nikisch (the same festival that premiered Elgar’s Falstaff symphonic study, Op. 68)
• *Not to be confused with Butterworth’s Six Songs from A Shropshire Lad, which predates this orchestral work¹

About the Piece

• Butterworth borrowed musical material from his Six Songs from A Shropshire Lad, specifically from the first song, “Loveliest of trees.”
  • You can think of A Shropshire Lad as an epilogue to the previously-written songs set to Housman’s poetry.
• The rhapsody shows the influence of Sibelius, Debussy, and Butterworth’s friend, Vaughan Williams.
• Fun/ morbid fact – the end of the piece quotes one of Butterworth’s Housman songs, “With rue my heart is laden.” The whole phrase, “With rue my heart is laden / For golden friends I had,” became his epitaph following his untimely demise on the front lines of WWI.²

1. Stephen Banfield, “Butterworth, George,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed March 28, 2013, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000004467.
2. Ibid.