| BACK FROM HIBERNATION |
| After a coma of some ten years, this site has finally found itself a new webmaster. His first priority has been the re-editing of the current pages. And as a result the distorted composition scheme in Vaughan Williams’s Five English Folk Songs is now forced back into a shape that makes sense. The lay-out of the pages on the three partsongs has been adjusted, according to the author’s original intentions. Next on the list are some minor revisions of the original text, and the publication of parts two and three. And then this site will be ready to move on to new topics. The first of these will be the poetry of Emily Dickinson, but the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death will not pass unnoticed.
On the Five English Folk Songs In 1913 Ralph Vaughan Williams published a small collection of four part settings of folk songs . Four of them combine excellently on a common theme. The fifth one is on its own. Why did RVW add a Christmas wassail to a spring time love story?
On the three Elizabethan Partsongs The Art of Ralph Vaughan Williams deals with textexpression in this composer’s “Three Elizabethan Part Songs”. A method to shed a complete new light on three independent texts by William Shakespeare and George Herbert. And to prove them an unity. Parts One and Two of this article investigate the anomalies in the composition of the poems themselves. Part Three investigates similar anomalies in their musical settings. Anomalies that turn three independent songs into an equally close knit unity. In the process proving that the scores have been antedated. |