The Vaughan Williams Connection 2008

You’ve seen Horsham Museum’s
Ralph Vaughan Williams Horsham’s Hidden Connection
now listen to the music

RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS:
HORSHAM’S MUSICAL CONNECTION
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Lucy Broadwood
Henry Burstow

on
Saturday 20th September  7.30pm
St Mary’s Parish Church Horsham

Celebrate with us the remarkable musical legacy that blends Horsham folk song tradition with the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams. Taking place in the medieval splendour of St Mary’s Church, Horsham  this concert is a real musical treat whose very diversity will awaken or renew long forgotten interests. From the internationally acclaimed musicians who will play much loved compositions by Vaughan Williams to the local folk singers who have been brought up on old Horsham folk songs this is a real musical occasion and they want you to be part of it.

The Bernardi Chamber Orchestra/String Academy
(conducted by Andrew Bernardi and Nick Allen)
will perform
Lark Ascending, Monks Gate, Concerto Grosso, Greensleeves
Horsham Folk Club
will perform
Traditional Horsham and Sussex folk songs
including dance by Broadwood Morris.

Tickets  £12 per person if bought before 1st September, £15 afterwards or on door.
Note child accompanied by an adult goes free

Tickets are available from Horsham Museum, 9 Causeway, Horsham RH12 1HE Tel. 01403 211661and on the door on the night.

NOTE: the on-line ticket allocation has now been sold.

Event Background

At the turn of the last century the esteemed English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams discovered English folk songs and traveled the countryside transcribing and personally preserving many; being fascinated by the beautiful simplicity of the music and its roots in the working lives of ordinary people.

One of RVW’s most significant sources in this respect was Horsham in West Sussex due to his great friendship with Lucy Broadwood and her particular association with the Horsham folk tradition. Lucy was the foremost collector of English folk songs and published ‘Sussex Songs’ in 1889. She was once described by her great friend RVW, as ‘the greatest English folk song scholar’ and Vaughan Williams also visited and recorded the singing of Horsham singer and writer Henry Burstow at Lucy’s recommendation.

Burstow remarked how strange it was to hear his own voice on the phonograph’s wax cylinder!

RVW collected the song ‘The Captain Cried All Hands’ from Mr and Mrs Verrall, of Monks Gate, Horsham, in 1903, which inspired the tune ‘Monks Gate’. Although it was a tiny hamlet just outside Horsham town, its name is well known around the world as one of the most popular hymn tunes, Bunyan’s ‘Who would true valour see (To be a pilgrim)’.

In fact, 35 tunes in the English Hymnal are based on folk melodies.

RVW also wrote ‘Fantasia on Sussex Folk Tunes, a piece for cello and orchestra which is listed as unpublished. The five songs on which it is based are still sung today by members of Horsham Folk Club which also celebrates its golden jubilee this year in 2008. At 50 years, Horsham Folk Club is one of the longest, continuously running folk clubs in the country. Quite a remarkable local preservation of rural English tradition when you consider that one of the five songs from Fantasia, ‘Bristol Town’ was collected by Lucy Broadwood from Burstow in Horsham in 1893. The product of the local family business Broadwood pianos, were once favoured by famous composers such as Beethoven and Chopin.

In 1971 two members of Horsham Folk Club went to ask Captain Broadwood if they could use the family name for the Horsham Morris Dance side. The captain said he was delighted as he felt that his aunt never achieved the true level of recognition that she deserved. ’Broadwood Morris’, still today, preserve the tradition of dancing in costume around Horsham on public holidays and uphold folk’s links with Sussex rural tradition like ‘wassailing the apple trees’ in early January. One of the current Broadwood Morris side is also a direct descendent of Charlie Verrall of RVW’s ‘Monks Gate’ fame.

Henry Burstow's repertoire of folk songs is listed in ‘Reminiscences of Horsham – Recollections of Henry Burstow’, which was published in 1911, the same year as the national English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS) was formed by Cecil Sharp.

RVW’s efforts to raise the appreciation of traditional English folk song and melody were acknowledged when later in his life he became president of the EFDSS, which, in recognition of his early and important work in this field, also named its library the ‘Vaughan Williams Memorial Library’

To celebrate this unique blend of Horsham’s musical heritage, where folk meets classical, we are planning to hold a spectacular event at St Mary’s Church on September 20th September. It is an event that will commemorate 50 years since the death of Ralph Vaughan Williams and celebrate his close association with the Horsham folk scene. The concert will feature the [the orchestral details] along with performances of the associated English folk songs and dance. The concert will also be the culmination of the Ralph Vaughan Williams exhibition taking place at Horsham Museum from 17th July 2008.