The Influence of Folk Music on Modern English Composition
Author(s): Frank Howes
Source: Journal of the International Folk Music Council , 1953, Vol. 5 (1953), pp. 52-54
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/836153
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52 INTERNATIONAL FOLK MUSIC JOURNAL
teacher
teacher must
mustdemand
demand
the highest
the highest
standards standards
consistent with
consistent
the maintenance
with ofthe maintenance of
interest.
interest. Do Do
not,not,
said Sir
said
John,
Sir let
John,
us claim
lettoo
usmuch
claimfortoo
the much
possiblefor
contribution
the possible contribution
of
ofour
ourfolk
folk
music
music
and dancing
and dancing
to world to
affairs
worldor asaffairs
a cure for
orwar
as or
a cure
materialism,
for war but or materialism, but
let
letususinstead
instead
assessassess
it at its
it right
at itsvalue
right
bothvalue
for ourselves
both for
in our
ourselves
own communities
in our own communities
and
andinternationally
internationally as a means
as a of
means
sharingofand
sharing
enriching
and
ourenriching
own nationalour
traditions.
own national traditions.
The
Thefollowing
followingwerewere
some of
somethe needs
of thein each
needs
of our
in local
eachcommunities
of our local
which
communities
could which could
be
bemet
met byby
folkfolk
musicmusic
and dancing:
and dancing:
(I)
(I)The
Theneed
need
for for
roots,roots,
a senseaofsense
common
of ground
commonbeneath
ground
and between
beneath
us inand
our between us in our
suburban
suburban (and(and
urban)
urban)
life, and
life,
"commonsense"
and "commonsense"
of delight between
of delight
lonely between lonely
people
peoplewhich
whichwe can
wedevelop
can develop
by "celebrating."
by "celebrating."
He instanced the
He desire
instanced
to the desire to
celebrate
celebrate on on
VE night
VE night
when bonfires
when bonfires
were lit andwere
peoplelit
joined
andhands
people
to joined hands to
dance
dancearound
around them.
them.
Spontaneity
Spontaneity
and the sense
andofthe communal
sense ofenjoyment
communal enjoyment
were
werethere,
there,
but but
the people
the people
lacked the
lacked
formsthe
and forms
patterns and
whereby
patterns
these could
whereby these could
be translated into dance.
(2) The need for rich variety in our lives which tend to be washed over wit
monotonous waves of cinema music
(3) The need for active leisure in a world where we are constantly lured into plus
seats to watch, rather than to entertain ourselves. Singing, dancing an
music-making offer us the opportunity of creative adventure which is the l
blood of any state deserving the name of "welfare."
These needs are common to many nations. Let us begin by seeking to meet the
locally, by learning to celebrate, and then let us try to communicate with oth
across frontiers, for the sake of enriching our own songs and dances. Then,
by-product, we shall find that we have helped to weave a strand or two into t
texture of a richer and wider community for which national frontiers will, as it w
distinguish only between the instruments of the orchestra, instead of shutting us u
in soundproof national compartments and preventing us from singing or dancing o
even talking together.
SIR GILMOUR JENKINS (London) thanked Sir John Maud for his stimulating addre
THE INFLUENCE OF FOLK MUSIC ON MODERN
ENGLISH COMPOSITION
by
FRANK HOWES (London)
HISTORIANS are agreed that there has been a real revival in English composition after
two centuries of eclipse. It began in earnest about i880 and can be compared with
a similar revival in French music associated with the names of Franck and Faure that
preceded it by a quarter of a century. The influences that brought about the English
revival mostly go back to I840. The two chief are the revival of interest in the
English classics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the folk-song revival.
There are others. There was an academic movement for a more vital music led by
Hubert Parry and Viliers Stanford operating from Oxford and Cambridge and from
the newly-founded Royal College of Music. There was an anti-academic movement
following hard in the wake of the academic movement of whom the leading figure
was Edward Elgar operating from the Midlands, with Granville Bantock and some
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THE INFLUENCE OF FOLK MUSIC ON MODERN ENGLISH COMPOSITION 53
lesser figures, all of whom regarded themselves as progressives an
the leadership of Richard Strauss in Germany (as contrasted w
Brahms upon Parry and Stanford). Their contribution was to
hitherto based almost exclusively upon choral singing, conscious o
produced great music in Elgar's symphonies and concertos and Str
Elgar as a fellow spirit. But it was otherwise abortive from th
national emancipation and the cultivation of a distinctively
were certain other fertilising influences at work to favour a n
these were the Bach revival which, following Mendelssohn's lead,
taken in the I88o's by his pupil, Sterdale Bennett, and gathere
the next 70 years; some popular movements, notably tonic sol-fa,
to help working-class singers sing at sight and another wholly wor
that started in the north of England, all-brass bands, and fin
festival movement also prepared the public for a less complacent a
of music than the current imitations of Mendelssohn which domi
for half a century.
The English folk song revival, which proved to be a major facto
at once a renaissance and an emancipation, and which is our
curiosity of history. Probably as a consequence of the Industr
music had to all appearance vanished from England, though S
Wales were famous for the richness of their folk music tradition
the Edinburgh publisher (I775-I85I), who was active in col
melodies of the "Celtic Fringe" of the British Isles, engaged Pleye
and Weber among others to make piano accompaniments for his p
of traditional songs. Certainly both in Scotland and Ireland th
music began in the eighteenth century. Yet in England as late
a German musicologist who had settled in London, could find
to include or discuss in his book on National Music. With surpr
suggested that the absence of English songs might be for want of
He wrote:
"Although the rural population of England appear to sing less than those of
most other European countries, it may nevertheless be supposed that they als
especially in districts somewhat remote from any large towns, must still preserve
songs and dance tunes of their own inherited from their forefathers."
Actually had he known it the search had already begun. The pioneers were
John Broadwood, a country parson, and William Chappell, an antiquarian, who ha
begun to investigate the one the oral, and the other the written tradition of English
traditional songs. Fifty years later a new generation of collectors, Broadwood's niece
and Cecil Sharp prominent among them, began collecting from oral sources in earnest
and were richly rewarded. This was about I900, when the academic revival was se
not to be producing a nationalist type of composition, as had been expected. Vaughan
Williams, who had an academic training and was a folk song collector, perceived b
I905 that for an English music it was not enough to transplant from continental soil
a style compounded of German sonata form and Italian opera, but that English roots
were necessary. He therefore turned to the madrigal, to Purcell and above all t
folk song. Folk song was the decisive influence in the formation of his style. Th
actual impact of folk song on his melody and harmony can be very well seen in two
early works, the song "Linden Lea," one of the few volksthiimliche songs in English
music, a strophic setting of a poem in the Wessex dialect and the overture to
"The Wasps."
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54 INTERNATIONAL FOLK MUSIC JOURNAL
His contemporary Gustav Hoist was even more radical in mind and less traditional
in sympathies. These two together cut the link which had tied English music to the
Continent since the time of Handel. The emancipation was so complete that, unlike
the similar nationalist movements founded on folk song in Russia, Bohemia and
Hungary, nationalism in Britain did not found a school, though there have been
adherents of the second generation to the creed formulated by Vaughan Williams,
viz. Moeran, Finzi and Rubbra, while John Ireland's music shows some of the influences
of folk song, viz. a flavouring of the modes. But the younger generation has enjoyed
its emancipation and one looks in vain for the direct influence of folk song in Walton,
Rawsthorne, Britten and our younger contemporaries.
The actual influence of folk song alike in emancipating English music from Central
Europe, in fertilising our creative impulses and in fashioning a national style, has
followed the pattern already familiar in the nineteenth century nationalist movements
of the Russian Kutchka, of Smetana and Dvorak, of Bartok and Kodaly, of the
Spaniards, of Grieg, and less conspicuously of Sibelius. But actual instruction in
folk music is not given in our system of musical education. In our primary schools
folk song is used in the singing class as part of elementary general education. This
is largely due to the efforts of Cecil Sharp to get our Ministry of Education to recognise
folk songs as good healthy material for school children, better than so much of the
jejune music specially composed for children's consumption. To that extent a small
proportion of our English folk songs are widely known and to that extent the words
on the foundation stone of Cecil Sharp House about restoring their songs to the
English people have come true. But in academic musical circles no one cares an iota
about folk music. Young men and women come into my history class at the Royal
College of Music, where I devote one lecture per year to the subject, without ever
having even heard the most attractive of English folk songs, and at the universities,
though folk dancing is practised, no one, from professor to undergraduate, shows the
slightest interest in our national heritage of folk music. The services of folk music to
composition have, however, been incalculably far-reaching here as elsewhere in
Europe. It would not be too much to claim that this is the greatest single service
which the discovery and revival of folk traditions in music has conferred on Great
Britain.
Dr. VAUGHAN WILLIAMS could not agree that folk music had been ignored by Parry
and Stanford, and mentioned Parry's The Art of Music, in which he had devoted a chapter
to folk song, and Stanford's editing of folk songs and his use of them in his own compositions.
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