3 Folksong Arrangements

O Waly, Waly

The Sally Gardens

Sail on, sail on

A special feature of today’s programme is that dispersed through it are three of Britten’s Folksong Arrangements rescored by Glyndebourne’s Composer in Residence, Julian Philips, for singers involved in the Jerwood chorus development scheme. Britten’s own versions – there are more than fifty of them, written over a period of 33 years – are scored for solo voice, mostly with piano accompaniment but in some cases with guitar or harp. They can profitably be treated in other ways, however.

Originally from Somerset and presented here as an ensemble, O Waly, Waly makes a touching introduction to a concert that has much to do with water, tears and the sea. Although the words of The Sally Gardens are not traditional, the tune is. The poem, W.B. Yeats explained, is his “attempt to reconstruct an old song from three lines imperfectly remembered by an old peasant woman in the village of Ballysodare, Sligo, who often sings them to herself.” One of Britten’s most beautiful arrangements, scored here for two solo voices and performed between two Bach arias in the middle of the programme, it most appropriately ends in tears. The closing ensemble Sail on, sail on is based on one of Britten’s ten arrangements of songs from Thomas Moore’s Irish Melodies. The accompaniment to the melodic line is as economical as that of O Waly, Waly and its sentiment similarly relevant to the context of today’s programme.