Folk Songs collected By Ralph Vaughan Williams

London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1983. L6 - A first edition (First published 1983 stated) hardcover book in very good condition in very good dust jacket. Dust jacket has some wrinkling and chipping on the edges and corners, small patch chipped/open tear on the top of the back flap, scattered light scratches, rubbing and scuffing, light tanning and shelf wear. Book has some bumped corners, some wrinkling on the spine edges, significant tanning and light shelf wear. 9.5"x6.25", 209 pages. Satisfaction Guaranteed. In the first few years of this century, Ralph Vaughan Williams travelled throughout England to listen to folk singers in public-houses and workhouses, in fields and at festivals, noting down by hand as many of the texts and tunes as he could manage. In the process he amassed variants of over 800 folk songs, some of them unique, which otherwise might well have been lost to posterity. Vaughan Williams, as Roy Palmer says in his introduction, is a composer of the first rank who owes a good deal to folk song, 'but folk song owes a good deal to him.' For this book, Roy Palmer has chosen 121 of the songs Vaughan Williams collected, of which 70 are previously unpublished. The mood ranges from bawdy to idyllic, from farcical to tragic; there are introspective lyrics and roaring tavern songs, jog-trot tunes and soaring airs. The songs are grouped under counties, eighteen in number, thus displaying each singer's repertoire to proper advantage. There are items, too, of Scottish and Irish origin, and others with American connections. Music for all the songs is provided, as well as their sources. Vaughan Williams was fond of fine melodies, as his collection attests. Roy Palmer's wide-ranging, representative and highly enjoyable selection perpetuates both the breadth and the quality of the songs Ralph Vaughan Williams saved from oblivion, and reminds us of the richness of the English folk song tradition.. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.