Ralph Vaughan Williams left a varied body of work that includes orchestral works, songs, operas, and choral compositions. He was considered a master of melody and mood and excelled at the art of accompaniment-writing. Rather than follow the traditional practice of using a piano to accompany a solo voice, Vaughan Williams chose the violin to accompany many of his songs including the set called Along the Field. The poetry of A. E. Housman, the well-known A Shropshire Lad and Last Poem, provided the text for this eight-verse song cycle written in 1927.
The national, pastoral, and traditional elements of Housman's poems appealed to Vaughan Willams due to his interest in preserving the rich history of English folk songs. Ranging from simple humming sounds to evocations of rural dances, the violin plays the role of the rustic fiddler, here, an appropriate match for the pastoral verses. The dominant themes are love, a pastoral nostalgia, and the sacrifice of young soldiers going to war, never to return.
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