Those orchestral arrangements...

Subject: Those orchestral arrangements...
From: GUEST,Rigby
Date: 08 Nov 16 - 10:01 AM

I heard a recording of Percy Grainger's arrangement of Shallow Brown on Radio 3 this morning. It struck me that I liked the actual arrangement, but not the vocal style, which just seems all wrong for an English folk song. Has anyone with a 'folk voice' ever performed or recorded the orchestral arrangements of composers such as Grainger, Britten, RVW and so on? I'd like to hear that.

Subject: RE: Those orchestral arrangements...
From: Jack Campin
Date: 08 Nov 16 - 10:24 AM

It isn't intended to be a folk song. It's Grainger's most complex composition, with multiple layers of meaning, including some very dark autobiographical associations.

Art music (or jazz, or techno, or...) which uses folk themes does not thereby become folk music. (As decided by the Church in the arly 15th century, when they agreed that settings of the Mass using popular songs like L'Homme Armé were legitimate liturgical music).

Subject: RE: Those orchestral arrangements...
From: GUEST,Rigby
Date: 08 Nov 16 - 10:28 AM

Well, I agree with what you say, but it doesn't answer the question of whether anyone has performed or recorded such material in this way. Have they?

Subject: RE: Those orchestral arrangements...
From: Stanron
Date: 08 Nov 16 - 10:31 AM

I too heard Shallow Brown on Radio 3 this morning. I disliked it so much I turned the radio off and got out of bed. I usually like Percy Grainger but something about that particular track ruined my lie in. Maybe it was the singing, very formal and proper, but the arrangement was so slow, it left me wishing it would end. And then there was the false ending, that feeling of relief that it was about to stop and then it started up again. AArgh!!!

Sorry, that's no help is it?

Subject: RE: Those orchestral arrangements...
From: Jack Campin
Date: 08 Nov 16 - 10:40 AM

Grainger knew perfectly well what folk style was, and how to ask for it in a score. (His transcriptions of source singers are the most complex and detailed anyone's ever done for British material). If he'd wanted anything very different from what you heard he'd have asked for it.

Subject: RE: Those orchestral arrangements...
From: Mr Happy
Date: 08 Nov 16 - 10:42 AM

Shallow Brown

Subject: RE: Those orchestral arrangements...
From: GUEST,Rigby
Date: 08 Nov 16 - 11:05 AM

Jack, of course that's true. But it still doesn't answer the question, which is about what *I* would like to hear, not what Grainger intended.

Thanks for the link Mr Happy. That is a vastly better version than the one that was on R3. Maybe it's more a question of finding the right classically trained singer than of doing away with them altogether.

Subject: RE: Those orchestral arrangements...
From: leeneia
Date: 08 Nov 16 - 09:38 PM

Hello, Rigby.

Try this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ldm70tuiP_Q

Subject: RE: Those orchestral arrangements...
From: GUEST,Rigby
Date: 09 Nov 16 - 05:21 AM

Thanks leenieia. Interesting, but quite far removed from Percy Grainger!

YouTube keeps inflicting the Sting version on me, but there's also a Richard Hawley version that's quite nice. None of them have the orchestral arrangement though.

Subject: RE: Those orchestral arrangements...
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 09 Nov 16 - 06:13 AM

fwiw
Two related threads
Recordings of Shallow Brown?  
&
Shallow Brown - how to sing it well??  


&digitrad
Shallow Brown  

Shallow Brown 2 


-

Subject: RE: Those orchestral arrangements...
From: mkebenn
Date: 09 Nov 16 - 12:45 PM

Art Garfunkle"s Barbra Allen from Angle Clair. Is that what you were looking for? It's almost TOO beautiful. Mike

Subject: RE: Those orchestral arrangements...
From: keberoxu
Date: 09 Nov 16 - 01:09 PM

What about Benjamin Luxon?

Subject: RE: Those orchestral arrangements...
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 09 Nov 16 - 05:23 PM

An interesting piece here by Gavin Bryars about the orchestration of Percy Grainger
"...  Such a scheme sounds, from this outline, simplistic to a fault, yet Grainger, by following the progressive narrative, injects into each of these cadences an increasing anguish so that they are never the same, a device which bears comparison with, say, Schubert's equivalent technique in Der Erlkönig. The tension increases verse by verse, reaching its height in the fifth verse ("For your return my heart is burning") and then, with consummate skill, Grainger allows a spatial calm to return to the last verse which, for the text at least, is the same as the first, adding a richly chromatic coda of a mere 6 bars." ...lots more > http://www.gavinbryars.com/work/writing/articles/percy-grainger-shallow-brown 

Subject: RE: Those orchestral arrangements...
From: Jack Campin
Date: 09 Nov 16 - 07:53 PM

Luxon went deaf in mid-career and counted on people being charitable about his shortcomings when he did a comeback. Discount the hard luck story and his later recordings are robotic crap.

Subject: RE: Those orchestral arrangements...
From: GUEST,Some bloke
Date: 10 Nov 16 - 03:27 AM

My responsible adult is what could politely be referred to as a classical buff. "As you can play guitar, why don't you buy a classical and play real music" etc being the nearest I get to encouragement for my thirty seven years of playing in folk clubs.

I was digging through her collection for something and came across Andreas Scholl's album of English folk songs. I more than get what you mean by wrong voice. Technically perfect but no soul in it whatsoever.

My comments to that effect were met with criticism of my own singing (from a pitch perspective) so east remains east in our household.

Subject: RE: Those orchestral arrangements...
From: leeneia
Date: 10 Nov 16 - 01:12 PM

I know what you mean, bloke. There's a trained soprano in our town whose voice is noted for its clarity and purity. I get so tired of listening to her. She does use expression, but she never varies the tonality an iota.

I say that listening to her for very long feels like drinking too much ice water.