Talk:English Folk Song Suite

Original version
I always thought the original version of this was for military (i.e. wind) band, not brass band. I know it was later orchestrated (for symphony orchestra) by Gordon Jacobs, but was not aware of a brass band version (not that my knowledge of brass band music is particularly extensive). In fact part of the article text actually refers to parts being played by woodwind!? David Underdown 14:28, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I have made this change. Wspencer11 16:18, 20 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I have updated the 'Instrumentation' section so it now has details of all three versions. 87.113.31.226 (talk) 13:52, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Songs vs. Song in Title
Grove Music Online lists the name of this work as "English Folk Song Suite" (note the singular Song). Also, there are about 26,000 Google search results for "English Folk Song Suite", compared to 243 for "English Folk Songs Suite". Anyone else think the article's title should be changed? --Violncello 23:16, 19 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Grove should be definitive enough. It's some time since I played it, and I think I do have a recording but it's not accessible at the moment to check how it's titled on that.  David Underdown 08:12, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I have changed the text, but I do not know how to change the article's title... Wspencer11 16:22, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I've moved the page to the correct title. --Violncello 17:15, 20 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The title of the 1956 Brass Band version does include the word 'Songs' unlike the other versions - the original 1923 version and 1924 orchestration were definitely 'Song'. That explains search results for both versions as both versions exist. I have recently added a new sub-section to the Instrumentation section of the page and mentioned that fact there. The page may have originally been created by a brass band player and he/she innocently used the title they knew the work by. 87.113.31.226 (talk) 12:21, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Lyrics for the Songs?
In a fit of summer holiday boredom and band camp withdrawal symptoms, I've looked up the words for the songs - Seventeen Come Sunday and My Bonny Boy. Does anyone know what songs are contained in Folk Songs From Somerset? I found this resource and searched for Folk Songs from Somerset, after some singing and some playing I think that The Sailor From Dover may be the first song in the "Trio" section, however it seems that many of the words fit any folk song tune you like to sing them to! For the main theme, I found a song that starts "A farmer's son so sweet/was keeping of his sheep" which has already been arranged by Vaughan Williams for male voice choir and is his collection of "Folk Songs From Somerset". Anyone got any ideas? Jane Gibson 17:29, 30 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes! In music class, at a British primary school in Thailand in the 1960's, I remember singing the song "Blow Away the Morning Dew" to the first melody in Folk Songs From Somerset; the first verse and chorus go something like "Twas on the sweetest summertime/In the middle of the morn/A pretty damsel I espied/The fairest ever born/chorus: Oh sing blow away the morning dew/The dew and the dew/Sing blow away the morning dew/How ?sweet? the wind doth blow." The song might be in what I remember as a ?1960's? edition of the Oxford Book of Nursery Rhymes (yellow/green soft cover, approximately A4 size, with a picture of a little girl dancing with a ?lamb?), with the same melody. I'll try to find it. As to the second melody, we sang to it the song "High Germany"; you can hear a MIDI file and read a version of the words plus some background on the following web page: High Germany. Stainer and Bell offer Ralph Vaughan Williams' setting of "High Germany" for male voices from their online shop; I haven't checked it but you might like to follow this up too: High Germany for TBarB. Sorry I can't help with the other songs just now but I'll keep listening and trying to remember! Miz hoseloader 19:39, 31 July 2006 (UTC) PS:


 * Addendum: In order to add edit summary omitted after last submission. Miz hoseloader 21:18, 31 July 2006 (UTC) 21:18, 31 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks very much Miz hoseloader!! Actually my mum has told me several times about "Blow Away The Morning Dew", but I always forget it!  Listening to my MIDI file of the first movement, I'd be very interested in finding out what the folk song for the 6/8 part of the movement is, where the high winds have that hellish bit - as a piccolo player I have never paid much attention to the actual melody, or even been able to hear it for that matter!  I'll update the articles accordingly. Thanks! Jane Gibson 21:30, 10 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Martin Carthy Sings High Germany on his first album, if you want the folk version. Paul Magnussen (talk) 20:50, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Three or four movements
I have a recording of this piece ("British Wind Band Classics," Royal Northern College of Music Wind Orchestra, cond. Timothy Reynish). In this recording, there are four movements to the English Folk Song Suite. They are: 1. March: 'Seventeen come Sunday' - Allegro 2. Sea Songs - Allegro 3. Intermezzo: 'My Bonny Boy' - Andantino 4. March 'Folk Songs From Somerset' - Allegro. Now, in the Wikipedia article on this piece, only movements 1, 3, and 4 are mentioned. I once had the opportunity to play this piece in a wind band, and movement 2 was absent there, also. The booklet that came with the CD says that the Sea Songs were included in the original version, and suggests that the decision to make the Sea Songs a separate piece was made by the publishers. Perhaps this should be mentioned in the article. 68.97.55.25 00:16, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

John Barleycorn
Hi there. In my college concert band we are playing the arrangement for Military Band. In the first movement, Seventeen Come Sunday, I (alto saxophone) play a melody, along with the low brass, which sounds incredibly like John Barleycorn. This article states that that piece of music can be heard in the third movement, but I cannot recognise it here. Is the article correct or do mine ears deceive me? Thanks JimHxn (talk) 19:50, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * There are lots of different versions of John Barleycorn, with different tunes: 8 in my own album collection alone. Paul Magnussen (talk) 21:02, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
 * As Paul Magnussen had said, 'John Barleycorn' has been collected from traditional singers multiple times, and shows an unusually high degree of melodic variability between the different versions. The one used the final movement of the 'Suite', a hearty major tune, is definitely the one published by Cecil Sharp in 'Folk Songs from Somerset', although other versions have modal tunes. One of the best-known (recorded by the Watersons and others) has a tune something like 'Dives and Lazarus', which is the last tune heard the first movement, so perhaps this is the one you were reminded of? Lord Bateman (talk) 16:10, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Too much quibbling about the title in the lede
The lede currently contains the following quibbles about the exact title:" Although it is commonly known by this title, it was actually published as "Folk Song Suite" - the title used on the score and parts. In 1924, the piece was arranged for full orchestra by Vaughan Williams' student Gordon Jacob, when the longer title was used, presumably with the composer's approval. Performances and recordings by orchestras always use the later title, but those by wind bands as often use the original, shorter, title, even though bandsmen regularly talk of the "English Folk Song Suite". This belongs toward the bottom of the article in a section about variations of the title. The lede should summarize, not belabor trivia about whether the word "English" appears at the beginning .Edison (talk) 19:49, 16 August 2013 (UTC).


 * This is important information - the different scorings have different titles 'Folk Song Suite' = wind band, 'English Folk Song Suite' = orchestra, 'English Folk Songs Suite' = brass band. You say, 'Performances by orchestras always use the later title' - they do that because that is the correct title for that version - 'but those by wind bands often use the shorter title' - they do that because it is the correct title for that version - 'even though bandsmen regularly talk of the "English Folk Song Suite"' - this is ambiguous; if by bandsmen you mean brass band players then you are wrong and if by bandsmen you mean wind band players you are contradicting yourself. If I was looking up a work called 'Folk Song Suite' in a catalogue or index I would not expect to find it listed under 'E' for 'English'. 87.113.31.226 (talk) 12:35, 28 June 2019 (UTC)


 * I have rewritten the lead paragraph as succinctly as I can. A person could arrive at this page looking for information about any of the three published editions and so all three need to be mentioned early on, so the person knows they have reached the right page without having to read to the end. There is no justification for having three pages in Wikipedia for this work, one for each title, and so someone looking for 'Folk Song Suite' needs immediate reassurance that, having arrived at a page called 'English Folk Song Suite' they have arrived at the correct page (or not; 'Folk Song Suite' is a fairly generic title and if they were not looking for this work then they also want immediate confirmation that they need to look elsewhere). 87.113.31.226 (talk) 13:50, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

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Correct attribution of folk songs in the suite
Hello fellow users. I came upon this article a few weeks ago, and realised immediately that the folk songs identified as the composer's sources in the final movement, 'Folk Songs from Somerset' were incorrect. The attributions included versions recorded using a phonograph by Percy Grainger, but Grainger never collected songs in Somerset, whereas Cecil Sharp noted hundreds of songs there. I matched all four songs in the final movement with the versions published by Sharp in his five-volume series 'Folk Songs from Somerset' and published my edit, after which I was contacted by a colleague who directed me to the publications by Robert Garofalo and Martin Graebe, who had studied Vaughan Williams' sources in detail. This confirmed my own analysis and provided additional citations, while their work also identified correctly several additional songs from the suite which had been misattributed in the existing text. I have now corrected all of these, but have made minimal amendments to the descriptions of the orchestration, which is not my speciality. I hope these changes meet with everyone's approval. Lord Bateman (talk) 15:55, 20 November 2022 (UTC)