Though George Butterworth referred to his Banks of Green Willow as an "idyll for small orchestra," the work is more like a miniature, and very English, tone poem. Though broadly based on a folk song, the music strays further and further from a simple, unassuming tone—first into quiet contemplation, then toward a dramatic climax far removed from the spirit of the source material. The work is structured as an arch characterized by a meditative beginning and ending. Butterworth was undoubtedly influenced by the English folksong revival of the 1900s, but his surviving compositions are generally more individual and, perhaps, more "European" in style than those of his contemporaneous countrymen. There is a melancholy undertone to this otherwise sunny work that, in hindsight, may seem like a premonition: a few years later, the 31-year old composer was killed in World War I.

© Roy Brewer, All Music Guide