Two classic recordings of haunting works by the English composer George Butterworth, killed at the Battle of the Somme in 1916 (he had been awarded the MC for exceptional gallantry) - the song 'Loveliest of Trees,' set to words of A.E Housman, sung by baritone John Shirley-Quirk accompanied by Martin Isepp, piano; and, using his own song setting as its principal theme, the orchestral rhapsody, A Shropshire Lad (1912), with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Adrian Boult.
A glimpse of a lost world and of a promise snuffed out by "the monstrous anger of the guns"...
A glimpse of a lost world thankfully still available for us to enjoy. Yet we must also wonder what uncomposed delights would have been if he had not been killed.
ReplyDeleteFor me the works of Butterworth, and Vaughan-Williams cry out 'England!' more than anything else.