Samuel Foxon
Tag: Vaughan Williams
Advent Carols Programme Notes
When does Christmas start? The shops stock Christmas in September; The Christmas adverts start in October; The radio plays songs from November; The decorations are up in December. In the Church, Christmas truly begins with the Mass on Christmas Day. The preceding weeks make up the season of Advent—a time not of celebration, but of…
Music from the British Isles – Programme Notes
The Choral music in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales has often taken a different trajectory from its European counterparts. In part, this was due to the increased time it took for artistic ideas to permeate to Britain from the various cultural centres of Venice, the Vatican, or even Vienna. It is possibly the historical context…
Ralph Vaughan Williams use of Folk tunes
Herbert Howells, the English composer most noted for his choral works, and friend of Ralph Vaughan Williams once described him as an ‘original who liked to think of himself a kleptomaniac’, due to his use of melodies and themes from the renaissance and folk tunes from around the country (Sadie, 1998: 98). It is perhaps…