PASP003:
A Shropshire Lad - Rhapsody - George Butterworth
(1885-1916)
MP3
price
Hallé
Orchestra
Conductor: Sir Adrian Boult Recorded
1942
Issued as HMV C.3287
Matrix numbers: 2ER601-III, 2ER602-II
Duration
8'14"
Play
30s sample:
The
death in the French trenches of George Butterworth(above)
in 1916, at the age of just 31, was one of the greatest musical tragedies
of the First World War. Already he was showing huge promise as a composer,
and many thought him to be the most likely of his generation to find international
success.
As
it was we are left with precious little music, of which this moving piece
is one. Composed in 1912 as an epilogue to his 1911 song cycle "A
Shropshire Lad", set to the words of A. E. Housman, it is one of
the lesser-known gems of early 20th Century English romanticism.
The
loss of Butterworth was sorely felt by the musical generation who had
fought alongside him and survived, and one can hear very clear echoes
of this piece in one of E J Moeran's earliest compositions for orchestra,
his rhapsody In The Mountain Country, composed in 1921, just four
years after the composer had suffered life-threatening injuries himself
on the battlefield.
