Suite on English Folk Tunes: A Time There Was…

Composer: BRITTEN, Benjamin
  • Britten composed his Suite on English Folk Tunes, op. 90, in 1974, two years before his death).1
  • Britten was experiencing ill health while writing this: his heart was slowly failing and he had suffered a stroke that compromised his ability to play the piano.2
  • The subtitle “A time there was…” is taken from poem Winter Words by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928). This subtitle is a nostalgic reflection by Britten looking back on his long career arranging folk songs.3
  • The Suite on English Folk Tunes was “lovingly and reverently dedicated to the memory of Percy Grainger,” another English folk song arranger, whose work Britten appreciated and related to.4
  • Listen for: instead of just making a new accompaniment for a folk melody, Britten quotes a fragment of folk melody, then develops it into something new.5

Sources

  1. Jennifer Doctor et al, “Britten, (Edward) Benjamin,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed August 12, 2019,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000046435.
  2. Jo Kirkbride, liner notes to Ralph Vaughan Williams, James MacMillan: Oboe Concertos, Nicholas Daniel, oboe, Britten Sinfonia, James MacMillan, conductor, Harmonia Mundi 807573, Cd, 2015.
  3. Doctor et al, “Britten, (Edward) Benjamin,” Grove Music Online.
  4. Ibid.
  5. Kirkbride, liner notes to Ralph Vaughan Williams, James MacMillan: Oboe Concertos.

Cut IDs

20521 42891