Vaughan Williams was certainly an extraordinary person, but I'm wondering howhe is (and was) regarded as a folk song collector. I think Roy Palmer said that Vaughan Williams emphasized the tunes of folk songs, and sometimes transcribed only a verse of two of the lyrics. Since many collectors didn't bother with melodies at all, maybe Vaughan Williams served as a good balance.
I also got the impression that perhaps Vaughan Williams only dabbled in folk song collecting, and that his work in that area wasn't significant.
I have Palmer's 1983 book, Bushes and Briars: Folk Songs Collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams. It's an inexpensive 1999 reprint from Llanerch publishers, and I really like it.



Oh - in my senior year of high school, my English professor said the that the first name of Vaughan Williams is pronounced "Rafe." Is that correct? This same professor also contended that Michelangelo's David is not circumcised - could that be so?


-Joe Offer-