, Leonard
Folk Song Arrangements, Vol. 1 (British Isles): The Salley Gardens
Traditional (Irish), arr. Benjamin Britten
Recording
Ian Bostridge (tenor), Julius Drake (piano)
- Album
- The English Songbook
- Year
- 1999
- Length
- Period
- Folk song
- Listen
Painting
Jean Baptiste Camille Corot
Willows and Farmhouse at Sainte-Catherine-lès-Arras, 1871
The piece
Yeats published the words in 1889 as a reconstruction of an old song he had heard partly remembered by a woman in Ballisodare, County Sligo, and they are sung to the Irish air "The Maids of Mourne Shore". Britten's setting for voice and piano opens his first volume of British Isles folk song arrangements, published in 1943.
The recording
Ian Bostridge and Julius Drake recorded it in February and March 1999 at Abbey Road Studios, London, for The English Songbook, a recital of English song on EMI Classics.
Other recordings
Philip Langridge with Graham Johnson on Naxos's complete set of the arrangements (recorded 1995), and Peter Pears with Britten at the piano.