Lincolnshire+Posy

This page is dedicated to information about Lincolnshire Posy. Australian born Percy Grainger began his musical career as a concert pianist, and he took the London musical scene by storm. His first public concert took place at Steinway Hall on October 29, 1901, and his flamboyant stage presence made him the darling of London’s best families. His life as a virtuoso pianist was not without its pressures, however, and Grainger soon discovered that he was happy not as a performer, but as a composer. In 1905, Grainger attended a lecture on folk music delivered by Miss Lucy E. Broadwood, where he became fascinated with English folksong collecting. He collected his first song while attending a competition festival in Lincolnshire, and with that, he was hooked. At first, Grainger would simply wander up to a farmer plowing his fields and ask if he knew any songs. As the man sang, Grainger would jot down the melody, and someone else would notate the words. On one expedition he was accompanied by the British literary figure H.G. Wells, who remarked, “you are trying to do a more difficult thing than record fold songs, you are trying to record life.” Eventually the exercise proved too arduous and Grainger sought a better method. The result was the acquisition of an Edison-Bell wax cylinder phonograph, which Grainger carried along with him on his bicycle as he traversed the English countryside. In the 1940s, these cylinder discs were donated to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. where they were transferred to audiotape and eventually returned to the Grainger Museum at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Of **Lincolnshire Posy**, the composer writes: “//Lincolnshire Posy//, as a whole work, was conceived and scored by me direct for wind band early in 1937. Five, out of the six, movements of which it is made up, existed in no other finished form, though most of these movements (as is the case with almost all my compositions and settings, for whatever medium) were indebted, more or less, to unfinished sketches for a variety of mediums covering many years (in this case the sketches dater from 1905 to 1937).” Program Notes from the CD liner notes “Songs of the Earth. The United States Air Force Band Washington DC Lieutenant Colonel Lowell E. Graham, Commander/Conductor”.
 * Grainger, Percy (1882-1961) //Lincolnshire Posy// edited by Fennel, published by Ludwig (Time: 16 minutes ) (Grade: VI) (Set $200; score $35)**

Much can be found on the web.... Percy Grainger Society

some sources for studying Lincolnshire Posy analysis and background and interpretation: Sinfonietta, by Ingolf Dahl ; Symphony No. 3, by Vittorio Giannini; __**Lincolnshire Posy, by Percy Grainger;**__ Symphony in B-flat, by Paul Hindemith; Symphony for Band, by Vincent Persichetti; La Fiesta Mexicana, by H. Owen Reed; and Theme and Variations, Opus 43a, by Arnold Schoenberg. Conductor problems and solutions were located by measure number or rehearsal letter for organization into a quick reference to specific challenges. =Lincolnshire Posy= --See also: General books, etc. : Miles, Richard. //Teaching music through performance in band//.

*Begian, Harry. “Remembering how Grainger conducted Lincolnshire Posy.” //Instrumentalist,// 47 (Aug. 1992): 117-20.

“When Harry Begian was a student at Wayne State University, the band performed Lincolnshire Posy under the direction of Percy Grainger on two of his visits to the campus. The following are recollections of Grainger’s musical interpretaion and comments.” Begian describes rehearsals with Grainger and how his conducting technique was usually poor but “he spoke succinctly and positively about what he wanted to hear” making up words that fit what he wanted like “undowithoutable.” There are clear descriptions of style, tempo, balance issues, and many other important issues quoted from the mouth of the composer which anyone considering conducting this should really read.

*Fennell, Frederick. “Lincolnshire Posy part 1.” //Instrumentalist//, 34 (May 1980): 42-48. *Fennell, Frederick. “Lincolnshire Posy part 2.” //Instrumentalist//, 35 (Sept. 1980): 15-20. *Fennell, Frederick. “Lincolnshire Posy part 3.” //Instrumentalist//, 35 (Oct. 1980): 28-36.

These are detailed, interesting and very useful articles. They give very good background on each movement: an explanation of form and tonal centers, stories of what the folk singer sang, suggestions for rehearsal techniques, balance issues, magical moments in movment 2, conducting the mixed meter in movement 3 and getting the players to pull it off, musical examples, and diagrams of conducting patterns.

Grauer, Mark. “Grainger’s lost letters on Lincolnshire Posy.” //Instrumentalist,// 47 (Aug. 1992): 12-17.

This article entertains but also enlightens through quotes of actual letters written around the time of the premiere of Lincolnshire Posy. One of the Grainger’s letters to R. F. Goldman, goes like this: “Mr. Goldman says you are going to have plenty of alto and bass clarinets (6 of each?) I would like awfully if as many as possible alto and bass clarinets took part in my pieces.” The description of the rehearsals and performances that took place is very impressive and will interest anyone who is conducting Grainger master wind work.

Knight, John Wesley. “Graphic Analyses of the Conducting Techniques for Irregular Meters and Nonmetrical Organizations Found in Selected Twentieth-Century Band Literature.” Diss., The Louisiana State University, 1979.

Slattery, Thomas. “The Life and Work of Percy Grainger Part 2, Lincolnshire Posy.” //Instrumentalist//, 22 (Dec. 1967): 47-49.

This is a short musical description of Lincolnshire Posy that gives basic information like form, tonal centers, and background stories. It is accurate but not nearly as in depth and enlightening as Fennell’s articles from 1980.

Winkle, William Allan. “Grainger’s Lincolnshire Posy: An Early masterpiece for Wind Band.” Diss., University of Northern Colorado, 1976. A.

Article on using Lincolnshire Posy as a complete curriculum for teaching well rounded musicianship, including analysis of mvt. 1 and 2. Goza Article on Lincolnshire Posy as curriculum EXCERPT: If an educator were looking for a single composition that would prove an ideal vehicle for teaching note grouping (expressive, coherent phrasing), counterpoint, harmony, texture, form (in its most fundamental sense), orchestration, and the kinds of ways that extramusical concerns are given voice in great music, it would be difficult to do better than //Lincolnshire Posy//. **1.“Lisbon” (“Dublin Bay”)** The “Lisbon” setting is in Ab Mixolydian, with a somewhat reduced orchestration (trombones are absent in this movement, as are all of the percussion except timpani). The easy sway of 6/8 time provides an oddly cheerful-sounding metrical template for a thinly-disguised story of betrayal, and its four verses (reduced from six in the folksong original) constitute a virtual catalog of 20th-century harmonic and contrapuntal procedures. The fourth verse is expanded into a brief coda via a phrase elision at measure 64. It is in the first statement of this folk melody that we encounter one of the most intractable problems in music education: the disjunction between the //appearance// of printed musical notation on the page, and the actual //sounds// that it represents. For musical notation is a shorthand for an idea that was in the milieu at the time that it was committed to paper – and generally speaking, the farther back we go in time, the less likely it is that the printed notation is able to represent accurately the sounds that the composer actually intended. Consider the notation that is used to convey the folksong “Lisbon,” as it appears in the bassoon parts at the outset of this composition: ... explanatory note for “plenty of lilt” (“Which means: beats 1 and 4 much heavier than beats 3 and 6.”). ..

A related foundational assumption is that classical four-measure phrases – like many folksong phrases – are organized as 1 + 1 + 2. Unsurprisingly, then, one often finds smaller and larger structures that retain these proportions at various scales of size: .5 + .5 + 1; 2 + 2 + 4; 4 + 4 + 8; etc. The folksong “Lisbon” contains a very clear example, in //printed// measures 10-13 (//actual// measures 9-12).

Another foundational assumption is this: for dramatic reasons, the harmonic rhythm and harmonic interest will tend to increase toward the cadence of a phrase or the end of a larger section (e.g. a verse). A good example of this is the fact that the material in //printed// measures 10-13 is more active harmonically than the rest of the material; this is, in fact, the only one of the four 4-bar phrases that cadences on a note other than tonic.

KOOPS: READ THE ARTICLE FOR THE FULL STORY!! I JUMP NOW TO THE SECTION ON MVT. 2:

• The phrasing is more “progressive” than that of “Lisbon” – //a a// //1// //b c// in the present case, with each of its four components being two measures in length • The second half of the “b” phrase is almost identical to the second half of the first “a” phrase, and the ending of the “c” phrase employs the same pitch collection (F–E ␣ –A ␣ ) as in the “a” and “b” phrases; there is thus a high degree of integration among the phrases • The range of the tune is one octave – but from dominant to dominant in this case, as opposed to the tonic-to-tonic range of “Lisbon,” which is to say that this tune represents the plagal position of a mode • A sophisticated arch runs through the tune, represented by a stately stepwise ascent in the first half from the D ␣ on the first downbeat to the G ␣ in measure 2 and the A ␣ in measure 4, mirrored by a stepwise descent in the second half that is also easily traceable • Like “Lisbon,” “Horkstow Grange” is in A ␣ Mixolydian, as witness its four cadences; nevertheless, Grainger has harmonized it as though it were in D ␣ major, always ending on half cadences – some of them very remote indeed, as we will see below

Turning now to the form of the movement as a whole, I offer an interpretation that is somewhat at odds with a letter from Percy Grainger to Roger Quilter, quoted as Appendix II in the Fennell edition of the score. In that letter, Grainger identifies the amazing harmonies in measure 34 as lying “in the 4th verse.” The best understanding of this movement in my view, however, is not as a purely strophic song consisting of four verses, but as a balanced composition consisting of two verse/refrain pairings. The original folksong text supports this interpretation, and Grainger’s own treatment of this music makes the strongest possible argument for it, his enigmatic letter notwithstanding. Thus, the first verse consists of the first nine measures (counting the pickup note, unfortunately, as measure 1), the first refrain (or “chorus”) beginning at measure 10 and ending at the curious half cadence at measure 17; the second verse being the solo trumpet verse beginning with the upbeat to measure 20 and proceeding to the cadence at measure 28, and the final refrain beginning at the anacrusis to measure 30. In each of these sections, meter changes (mostly designed to accommodate written-out fermatas) obscure the phrasing design somewhat.

The first verse is set in the rich sonorities of the //Männerchor//, with the burden of harmony carried by a surprising degree of parallel motion (the tenor and bass lines consist almost entirely of parallel perfect 5ths). The harmony is completely diatonic, and the harmonization is strongly biased to Db major, the folksong original’s Ab Mixolydian to the contrary. The bass line is approximately equally divided between functional and stepwise motion. The brief contribution by the contrabassoon, euphonium and string bass at measure 10 is a noteworthy detail.

Etc. (Click on link above to get full article) or here:

=__**Horkstow Grange**__= __**Wind Repertory Project notes:**__ __**WRP Lincolnshire Posy Mvt. 2 Horkstow Grange**__

http://www.goldenhindmusic.com/lyrics/HORKSTOW.html Horkstow Grange Lyrics || ||
 * Horkstow Grange ||
 * //"'Horkstow Grange' (The Miser and His Man-a local tragedy)" was sung to Grainger by George Gouldthorpe, and tells a somewhat ambiguous story of a local happening. Grainger wrote in his manuscript: "John Bowlin' was a foreman at a farm at Horkstow, and John Steeleye Span was waggoner under him. They fell out, and J. S. Span made these verses." Often, these particularly local songs would be written as parodies of other folksongs, in much the way that Woody Guthrie, for example, wrote a great deal of his material. Even if not immortalized by this particular song, the name of Steeleye Span lives on! (Folk Rock historians take note).// ||
 * In Horkstow Grange there lives an old miser,

You all do know him as I've heard tell,

It was him and his man that was called John Bowlin',

They fell out one market day.

Pity them what see him suffer,

Pity poor old Steeleye Span,

John Bowlin's deeds they will be remembered,

Bowlin's deeds at Horkstow Grange.

With a blackthorn stick old Steeleye struck him,

Oftens had threatened him before,

John Bowlin' he turned round all in a passion,

Knocked old Steeleye on to the floor.

Steeleye Span, he was felled by John Bowlin',

It happened to be on a market day;

Steeleye swore with all his vengeance,

He would swear his life away. || Recordings: youtube: North Texas http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nxaNJCfGCo media type="youtube" key="8nxaNJCfGCo" height="315" width="420"

Emmory University: media type="youtube" key="nA5cYHiceC0" height="315" width="560"

=__**Mvt. 4 The brisk Young Sailor**__=

wikipedia:

Synopsis
A young sailor courts a young girl and wins her heart. But now he visits an alehouse in another town and entertains another. He is false and this other girl has more gold than she but that will waste along with her beauty. But our heroine still loves him dearly and besides she's carrying his child. Oh, what a foolish girl she was to have given her heart to a sailor. In some versions she dies of a broken heart and in others he is not a sailor but a farmer or other unspecified young man. [|[2]]

Lyrics
**A Brisk Young Sailor** [|[8]] A brisk young sailor courted me,

He stole away my liberty,

He stole my heart with a free good will,

I must confess I love him still.

Down in the meadows she did run,

A gathering flowers as they sprung,

Every sort she gave a pull,

Till she had gathered her apron full. When first I wore my apron low,

He followed me through frost and snow,

But now my apron is up to my chin,

He passes by and says nothing.

There is an alehouse in this town,

Where my love goes and sits him down,

He takes another girl on his knee,

Why is not that a grief to me. Ah, griev'd I am, I'll tell you why,

Because she has more gold than I,

Her gold will waste, her beauty blast,

Poor girl she'll come like me at last,

I wish my baby it was born,

Set smiling on its father's knee,

And I was dead and in my grave,

And green grass growing over me. There is a bird all in yonder tree,

Some say 'tis blind, and cannot see,

I wish it had been the same by me,

Before I had gained my love's company,

There is a man on yonder hill,

He has a heart as hard as steel,

He has two hearts instead of one,

He'll be a rogue when I am gone. But when they found her corpse was cold,

They went to her false love and told,

I am glad says he, she has done so well,

I long to hear her funeral knell,

In Abraham's bosom she does sleep,

While his tormenting soul must weep,

He often wished his time o'er again,

That his bride he might make her merry & marry her soon. media type="youtube" key="eE77mkLR7hU" height="315" width="560"