Folk Songs of the Four Seasons: An Acre of Land
Traditional (English), arr. Ralph Vaughan Williams
Recording
Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, English Voices, Dmitri Ensemble, Sir David Willcocks
- Album
- Vaughan Williams: Folk Songs of the Four Seasons
- Year
- 2009
- Length
- Period
- Folk song
- Listen
Painting
Pieter Bruegel the Elder
The Harvesters, 1565
The piece
Vaughan Williams collected this riddle song on 31 August 1904 from Frank Bailey at Coombe Bissett, near Salisbury; its singer plows an acre with a ram's horn and reaps it with a little penknife. He set it for women's voices in the autumn group of Folk Songs of the Four Seasons, written for the Women's Institute and first sung at the Royal Albert Hall on 15 June 1950.
The recording
Recorded on 9 and 10 January 2009 in West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge, this was the first recording of the cantata, conducted by Sir David Willcocks at 89. David Wordsworth in Classical Source called the performances excellent and praised the young choir's diction and tone.
Other recordings
The Holst Singers under Stephen Layton recorded Vaughan Williams's partsong setting of the same tune for Hyperion (1995), and the Deller Consort sang it on Vanguard's Folk Songs of Britain.