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Vaughan Williams - On Wenlock Edge (Instrumentation (All 3 pieces are set…
Vaughan Williams - On Wenlock Edge
Harmony & Tonality
Modal
Is My Team Ploughing? - Based on a Dorian mode
Butterworth, Is My Team Ploughing? - F minor but almost modal
Bredon Hill - Based on a Mixolydian mode
Parallel Harmony
Is My Team Ploughing? - strings and piano in the intro - French Impressionism
Whole Tone
On Wenlock Edge - 1st inv Eb followed by Abm suggest whole tone scale - French Impressionism
Pentatonic
On Wenlock Edge - beginning voice sing CD(F)GA - Folk Song
7th & 11th Chords
Bredon Hill - begins with a series of Em7 chords
Erlkönig, Schubert - use of V7 chords
Bredon Hill - First chord of B section - Cm11 chord - French Impressionism
Melody
Word-painting
'thick on Severn snow the leaves' - chromatic descent - leaves falling - A section, On Wenlock Edge
Erlkönig, Schubert - Piano stops playing on 'das Kind war tot' - silence of the Father when he realises his son is dead.
Bredon Hill, A section - melisma on 'happy' - Cm7th chord in accomp - foreshadowing?
Bredon Hill, B Section - melisma on 'pray' - highest pitch of piece - pray = heaven = high
Syllabic Text-setting
On Wenlock Edge - highly syllabic vocal line
My Mother..., Haydn - syllabic text setting, no extended melismas
Recitative
Recitative-style melody in B section - On Wenlock Edge
The Dead Man's parts (A) in verses 1&2 are quasi-recitative - Is My Team Ploughing?
Structure & Form
Is My Team Ploughing? - 3 verses of modified strophic form: AB, AB, A1B1
My Mother Bids Me Bind My Hair, Haydn - strophic form
Die Forelle, Schubert - first two verses are strophic
Bredon Hill - Intro, A, A, B, B1, C, D, A1, postlude
On Wenlock Edge - 5 verses - A, A, B, B, A/B
Texture
Homophonic
Is My Team Ploughing? - homophonic & homorhythmic in strings and piano - intro and end
Buttterworth, Is My Team Ploughing & The Lads in their Hundreds - Melody and Accompaniment
Polyphonic
On Wenlock Edge - A sections: trills in violins and viola; cello and LH double voice; ostinato sextuplet pattern RH
Is My Team Ploughing? - chromatic descending quavers in violins; sept/sex/quintuplet cello; chordal triplets in piano
Melody-dominated Homophony
Bredon Hill - A sections
My Mother..., Haydn - Melody-dominated homophony
Imitation
Bredon Hill, section D - imitation in cello & viola
Rhythm & Metre
anacrusis
On Wenlock Edge & Bredon Hill - anacrusis maintains natural inflections of speech on strongest beats in a bar
My Mother..., Haydn - anacrusis in second half of verse
triplets and sextuplets
On Wenlock Edge - sextuplets and triplets in piano, triplets in strings
Is My Team Ploughing? - triplets in piano in section B1
Erlkönig, Schubert - triplet ostinato pattern in RH piano - imitates sound of horse
Bredon Hill - triplet ostinato pattern in piano --> bells
Rhythmic freedom of voice
Bredon Hill, Section C - long held chords in accomp gives voice rhythmic freedom to enhance solemnness of section by drawing out the phrases
Bredon Hill - End of section A1 - free rhythm in voice - artistic freedom to express pathos
Butterworth, Is My Team Ploughing - long held notes in piano accompaniment give voice expressive freedom
General Context
The 3 pieces are from a song cycle called 'On Wenlock Edge' which was written by English composer Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) in 1909
The song cycle is a group of a total of 6 songs - setting 6 poems from A. E. Housman's 'A Shropshire Lad'
Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) was drawn to English Folksong so he collected and transcribed examples of it to preserve it.
Butterworth also influenced by English Folk song
Williams was heavily by the French Impressionist movement - French composers such as Debussy and Ravel were trying to move away from the German Romantic style.
They experimented with parallel harmony and tremolo strings amongst other musical devices
Williams omitted a verse of Housman's poem in his 'Is My Team Ploughing?' - about which Housman was not pleased.
Butterworth kept the verse
Instrumentation
All 3 pieces are set for a tenor and piano quintet - unusual combination for the time - a song cycle was usually only set for voice and piano
Romantic use of dynamic - lots of > and < and extremes
Standard tessitura - some higher notes but still within range of a tenor
On Wenlock Edge - sul ponticello strings, gives metallic unnatural tone quality - mimics the gale
Tremolo strings in all 3 pieces - French Impressionism
Bredon Hill - 'con sord' (with mute) strings - distant bells