Vaughan Williams and English folk music facts for kids

Ralph Vaughan Williams was a famous composer and musician. He was a big part of the first English Folk Song revival. This was a time when people worked to find and save old folk songs from England. Vaughan Williams also used these folk song tunes in his own music.

He started collecting songs in 1903. His first song was called Bushes and Briars. He got it from a 70-year-old worker named Mr. Charles Pottipher in Essex. Vaughan Williams went on to collect over 800 songs! He also found some singing games and dance tunes. For ten years, he spent about 30 days each year collecting songs. He traveled to 21 different counties in England. Most of his songs came from Essex, Norfolk, Herefordshire, and Sussex.

Vaughan Williams mostly wrote down the songs by hand. He did use a special machine called a phonograph for a few songs. He often wrote for the Folk Song Society's Journal. He was also on the society's committee for many years. Later, the Folk Song Society joined with the English Folk Dance Society. Vaughan Williams became the president of the new group, the English Folk Dance and Song Society. He held this job until he passed away.

Vaughan Williams's Song Collections

Many of the songs Vaughan Williams collected were published. One special issue of the Journal of the Folk Song Society had 61 songs he found. These songs came from places like Essex, Norfolk, and Yorkshire.

In 1908, a book called "Folk-songs from the eastern counties" came out. It was part of a series by another song collector, Cecil Sharp. This book included 15 songs from Vaughan Williams's collection.

Vaughan Williams also helped publish books of carols.

• Eight Traditional English Carols was published in 1919.
• Twelve Traditional Carols From Herefordshire came out in 1928. He worked on this with another collector, Ella Mary Leather.

Later, he helped edit "The Penguin Book Of English Folk Songs" in 1959. After he died, a book called "A Yacre Of Land" was published in 1961. It had 16 folk songs from his notes. Even with all these books, a lot of his collected songs have never been published.

In his last ten years, Vaughan Williams returned to folk songs. He created two large collections for choirs:

• Folk Songs of the Four Seasons in 1949.
• The First Nowell in 1958.

How Vaughan Williams Collected Songs

A folk expert named Roy Palmer once said that Vaughan Williams cared more about the song itself than the person singing it. He was more interested in the tune than the words.

Sometimes, Vaughan Williams did not write down all the words to a song. He might only write the first verse. For example, the words to a song called The Long Whip seem to have been lost completely.

Vaughan Williams knew that many folk songs had been printed on old papers called broadsides. These were like early newspapers or posters. Sometimes, he used the words from these broadsides to complete the songs for publishing.

He did not change the songs to make them "nicer" for publishing. Some other collectors did this. However, he still had to think about what could be published at the time. Sometimes, he also forgot to write down the names or jobs of the singers.

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