Orchestral Folk Music

Subject: Orchestral Folk Music
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 21 Apr 07 - 05:54 PM

I'd like to hear Mudcatters favourite orchestral arrangements of folk music. I remember - many years ago - first hearing Vaughan Williams' version of Greensleeves and being thrilled when the Lovely Joan section came in.

Subject: RE: Orchestral Folk Music
From: Bonecruncher
Date: 21 Apr 07 - 08:03 PM

Hilary Spencer's version of "O Sole Mio" when performed with the Mrs. Ackroyd Band has to be heard to be believed!
Colyn.

Subject: RE: Orchestral Folk Music
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 21 Apr 07 - 09:02 PM

Jo Stafford's "American Folk Songs," a Capitol LP circa 1950 and still (I think) available on CD. Surprisingly effective arrangements by Paul Weston, her husband, and Stafford has a real (albeit pop-based) feeling for the song, and a fine voice.

And no one should forget the extraordinary "Songs of the Auvergne," composed based on folksongs of that region of France by "Le bard d'Auvergne," Joseph Canteloube.

Not sure this fits the definition, but the Moscow Gypsy Theater has done some enchanting small-orchestra work with folk and popular songs.

Good orchestral folksong arrangements would have to include the fine calypso work done behind many of the classic calypso singers (Macbeth, the Lion, the Tiger, Houdini et al) by such fine aggregations as Gerald Clarke and His Orchestra.

... etc.

Subject: RE: Orchestral Folk Music
From: mrdux
Date: 22 Apr 07 - 01:58 AM

Percy Grainger collected and set dozens of folk songs for piano, orchestra, chorus, and all kinds of combinations of voice and instrument. I rather like the form of the orchestral suite based on folk songs. A few favorites are by Peter Warlock -- Capriole Suite; Gustav Holst -- St. Paul's Suite. 2 sets of Morris Dance Tunes; and Ralph Vaghan Williams -- Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus; Norfolk Rhapsody No.1; and the English Folk Song Suite

Aaron Copland set 10 diverse Old American Songs for piano and voice, and then orchestrated them. Some are folk songs, some hymn tunes, a lullabye. . . there's a great recording of them by Thomas Hampson, Hugh Wolff and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.

I agree that Canteloube's Somgs of the Auvergne is a
wonderful collection. Also worth hearing -- in a similar vein -- are the Chansons Bourguinonnes, by Maurice Emmanuel, a slightly older contemporary of Canteloube's.

michael

Subject: RE: Orchestral Folk Music
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 22 Apr 07 - 02:52 AM

mrdux:It's funny you should mention Holst's St Paul's Suite as only yesterday a friend of mine was raving about it having heard it on the radio recently.

Subject: RE: Orchestral Folk Music
From: mrdux
Date: 22 Apr 07 - 03:04 AM

It's been part of the regular rotation on our local classical station lately. I think I last heard it a couple days ago. I've always enjoyed it.

michael

Subject: RE: Orchestral Folk Music
From: katlaughing
Date: 22 Apr 07 - 03:21 AM

American composer Roy Harris used folk tunes, also.

Subject: RE: Orchestral Folk Music
From: Jack Campin
Date: 22 Apr 07 - 08:42 AM

Roy Harris's "Folk Song Symphony" is a choral work - did he do any purely instrumental ones?

One of my favourites is Bartok's Second Rhapsody for violin and orchestra, where he takes the tune known in America as "Simple Gifts" and takes it to much more interesting places than Copland did (and about 20 years earlier). I presume it's an Eastern European tune originally.

Prokofiev's Second String Quartet is a terrific piece based on Circassian folk tunes:
http://www.CircassianWorld.com/Prokofiev_StringQuartet.html

Subject: RE: Orchestral Folk Music
From: Sooz
Date: 22 Apr 07 - 11:13 AM

Any of Vaughan Williams folk songs plus Dvoraks "From the New World".

Subject: RE: Orchestral Folk Music
From: Rowan
Date: 23 Apr 07 - 02:23 AM

The above lists include some items I have really liked. At the risk of stirring up dogs that have been asleep for a couple of decades by now I could include George Dreyfus' "Theme from Rush", an orchestration he wrote based on the tune used for "Ten thousand miles away".

CHeers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Orchestral Folk Music
From: GUEST,Tootler at his sister's
Date: 23 Apr 07 - 03:59 AM

Not exactly orchestral, but I think one of the few folk song arrangements by a classical composer that work for me is Percy Grainger's choral arrangement of Brigg Fair. I suspect it was because he basically understood the music and his arrangement was sympathetic to the original song.

As a recorder player, I have come across some diabolical arrangements of traditional tunes for recorder consort by people who just try to be too clever. On the other hand, I have also come across some excellent ones.

Subject: RE: Orchestral Folk Music
From: terrier
Date: 23 Apr 07 - 02:29 PM

Going slightly off piste, would I be allowed to include Shaun Davey's Granuaile and The Brendan voyage? Not strictly folk but the stories and legends they are based on must qualify. Two very enjoyable modern orchestral works.

Subject: RE: Orchestral Folk Music
From: mrdux
Date: 23 Apr 07 - 04:26 PM

Glad Bartok was mentioned. Bartok and his colleague Zoltan Kodaly were inveterate collectors and scholars of central European folk music: they collected and notated nearly 14.000 songs from, among other places, Hungary, Roumania and Transylvania. They discovered that there was a gulf between authentic folk song, usually modal, and folk music overlaid by popular European dance idioms spiced with flamboyant Romani ornamentation -- called verbunkos music. Kodaly wrote the Dances of Galánta, which is verbunkos-derived, and its companion piece, the Marosszék Dances, which employs authentic folk tunes. Kodaly also wrote Variations on a Hungarian folksong, "The Peacock.". Kodaly may have been a lot less rhythmically and harmonically edgy than was Bartok, but the pieces are great fun nonetheless. Also worth a listen are Leos Janacek's Lachian Dances (Czech) and Georges Enescu's second Roumanian Rhapsody. Much of Liszt's, Dvorak's and Brahms' Rhapsodies and Enescu's first Roumanian Rhapsody are less purely folk in origin and are based more on the verbunkos-type of synthesis of folk and popular dance tunes with other influences.

michael

Subject: RE: Orchestral Folk Music
From: GUEST,G.
Date: 23 Apr 07 - 05:27 PM

My first introduction to traditional song came about via Britten's Folk Song arrangements during the time I was being classically trained as a singer. This then led of course onto RVW's own song collection and his subsequent pastoral arrangements. However, no one has yet mentioned Butterworth's 'Banks of the Green Willow' which was one of Tony Rose's most favourite arrangements. Like me, Tony came from a classical singing background and endeavoured to draw from those experiences in the performance of traditional songs.

Subject: RE: Orchestral Folk Music
From: Jack Campin
Date: 23 Apr 07 - 05:46 PM

I find that Butterworth thing annoyingly sentimental. Take a large dose of Grainger as an antidote.

Two more at the tough end of things: Luciano Berio's "Folk Songs" for voice and chamber orchestra (which goes all the way from "I wondered as I wandered" to a cracking Azerbaijani dance song he got off a 78) and Douglas Lilburn's tape piece "Poem in Time of War" (1967), which takes a woman's voice singing a Vetnamese folk song and progressively buries it under a wall of bomber-like electronic noise.

Subject: RE: Orchestral Folk Music
From: gnu
Date: 23 Apr 07 - 05:52 PM

Well.... you might listen to a few tunes from these obscure minstrels.

Subject: RE: Orchestral Folk Music
From: fogie
Date: 24 Apr 07 - 05:04 AM

I was listening to Radio 3 while cycling and heard "the plough that broke the plains" -I cant remember who wrote it, but it had the same slow tune as Copland wrote into Rodeo and there were definite differences ,I prefered Copland's.
I'm now racking my brain to remember the English composer that set playford and other early tunes in a suite = Warlock! thats him. Capriole suite.
I havent heard any Britten's folk adaptations that I liked, but Butterworth is lovely, and Vaughan Williams has some good "garland" arrangements, as does Percy Grainger. Don't lets forget Gay's Beggars Opera!
Thank you for the advice about Maurice Emmanuel.
There's a bunch of Spanish composers that make the most of their heritage, as does Italy's Resphigi in Ancient airs and dances (lute tunes)not forgetting Rodrigo's guitar works-
I think I could go on and on, but I need to go through my record collection- There are the Palladian Ensemble@ exploration of old Scottish and Italian-British composers, and someone who wrote a collection of songs/tunes called Colin's Kisses!

Subject: RE: Orchestral Folk Music
From: GUEST,Sue
Date: 24 Apr 07 - 05:43 AM

Mise Éire, music written by Seán Ó Riada for the film of that name does it for me.

Subject: RE: Orchestral Folk Music
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 24 Apr 07 - 08:31 AM

The new music created for the Distil Showcase (14 April, loughborough Town Hall) was rather wonderful. Mostly folk/orchestral compositions, apart from Jo Freya's, which was completely voice-based (and completely amazing). But Luke Daniels, Laurel Swift, Shona Mooney, Sonia Slaney and Dave Townsend all created wonderful new "orchestral folk" pieces.

Subject: RE: Orchestral Folk Music
From: mrdux
Date: 24 Apr 07 - 02:00 PM

The Plough that Broke the Plains was a film score by Virgil Thompson for a short documentary of the same name.

Subject: RE: Orchestral Folk Music
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 24 Apr 07 - 04:22 PM

I love to hear some of these folk song based choral things done without the classically trained vocal delivery.

Subject: RE: Orchestral Folk Music
From: Tootler
Date: 25 Apr 07 - 04:59 AM

<pedant mode>
Capriole suite was actually based on Arbeau rather than Playford.
</pedant mode>

Arbeau's Orchésographie was published about a century earlier than Playford, but like Playford is a dance manual. It takes the form of a conversation between master and pupil, the Pupil's name being Capriole, hence the title of the suite.

I particularly like the Pavane "Belle qui tiens ma vie" which is published in a four part arrangement in Orchésographie, unlike most of the tunes which are melody line only.

Subject: RE: Orchestral Folk Music
From: GUEST,BobL
Date: 25 Apr 07 - 08:20 AM

Check out also Paul Sartin's string quartet arrangement of "Midnight on the Water" on the Belshazzar's Feast CD "One Too Many". The definitive version as far as I'm concerned, but not for dancing!