Ash Grove and other folksongs

Benjamin Britten (1913-76) remains one of the most important and productive English composers of the 20th century. Perhaps best remembered for his many operas (such as Billy Budd or Death in Venice), Britten also compiled eight collections of folksongs from the British Isles. His settings are witty and original, drawing upon his own experience in writing for voice and years spent accompanying singers. Most of the songs were premiered by Britten and tenor Peter Pears, his partner in both life and music.
Ash Grove is a traditional Welsh song whose tune has been set to various lyrics; many listeners will know it as the hymn Let All Things Now Living from 1939. Britten sets it as a conventional strophic form starting with a tender high accompaniment to the familiar melody. The second strophe gets lower accompaniment that turns more daringly chromatic. Ash Grove began appearing on the duo’s U.S. concert tours during World War II and was finally published in 1943 in Britten’s first collection of folksongs.
Sally in Our Alley projects a quite different mood and is one of Britten’s most Schubertian songs. Most Schubertian are the rippling piano introduction and transparent, supportive accompaniment. It was not published until the late 1950s but was already a favorite encore piece during those war-time concerts. Often, so the story goes, Britten would simply improvise an accompaniment to the repetitive melody; Pears, too, would freely adjust the number and order of stanzas. This spontaneous approach captures the song’s jubilant, heartfelt emotions—with everything all right on the surface and flowing without great deliberation or forethought.
Dating from the mid-1700s, the Lincolnshire Poacher has survived as the march anthem of the Royal Lincolnshire Regiment. In 1961 Britten included his setting of the rousing tune in his fifth volume of folksongs. Embracing the militarist ethos—but one from an older, simpler time when soldiering had not yet learned its anonymous brutality—Britten starts with a galloping accompaniment and surging horn calls in the gaps between stanzas. The piano’s gestures gradually become fuller and more tonally rich over the course of 4-5 stanzas. Britten adds a quixotic descant, counterpointing in the high piano, for the final strophe—precisely the kind of detail that both rescues the setting from being conventional while not requiring excessive compositional deliberation. These folksongs are trifles, in a sense, but not any less delightful for that.

(c) Jason Stell