Benjamin Britten's first set of Folksong Arrangements date from his last months in America when he was full of homesickness and worry while awaiting the opportunity to return to England. Unusually for the prolific composer, Britten was unable to write and so he turned to arrangements and, in his homesick mood, he naturally turned to folk songs of the British Isles. Britten and Pears performed these settings as encores at their recitals and, as Britten noted at the time, they created a "'wow' wherever they have been performed so far!"

Britten set seven texts in total. The Sally Gardens takes two verses from the song and sets the ineffably quiet melody with touching simplicity over repeated chords in the right hand and discrete counterpoint in the left hand of the piano. Little Sir William takes the first three verses and sets the jaunty melody over a sprightly syncopated piano accompaniment and follows them with two quiet verses set with tenderness and affection. The Bonny Earl o'Moray is a highly dramatic setting of the strident melody over massive rolled chords in the piano. O can ye sew cushions has a slightly more elaborate accompaniment, like a berceuse, with the consoling melody set above it. The trees they grow so high, which starts and ends with the voice alone, has the most fully developed piano accompaniment that grows increasingly more complex with expressive counterpoints added above and below the melody. The Ash Grove sets the heartening melody simply for voice but adds delicate piano counterpoints on the keyboard that start far above the voice, sink far below it, and close far above it again. Oliver Cromwell is the final song of the set, a brief and humorous setting of a nasty little rhyme of a melody over a snide little accompaniment on the piano.

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1.The Salley Gardens

The Salley Gardens was originally set for voice and piano. The piece is an Irish tune with the words of the poet W.B. Yeats. Britten wrote two orchestral realizations of this piece, one for string orchestra, and the other for strings, bassoon and harp. These were probably written for a performance in London on December 13, 1942.

The accompaniment Britten wrote is virtually the same for both verses, with the second verse employing octaves to heighten the climax of the piece. The bass line is made up of a descending fifth theme, which is repeated through each verse. In the version for strings, the cello takes the bass melody. In the version for strings, bassoon and harp, the bassoon and harp take the bass melody. The upper parts of the accompaniment are constant eight notes throughout he entire piece. The orchestral versions do not vary much from the original version.



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