Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) was an influential British composer and folk-song collector. His powerful and expressive orchestral music is notable for its very “English” sound. His early adventures collecting folk songs in the English countryside profoundly influenced his later compositions. Along with Gustav Holst and Percy Grainger, his works for wind band form a foundation for the serious literature in that medium.
Sea Songs was written in 1923 as the original second movement of the English Folk Song Suite, and it was premiered as such at Kneller Hall that July. It was later split from the Suite, and received its premiere as a standalone work just a year later at the 1924 British Empire Exhibition at Wembley. Throughout its fairly typical da capo march form, it uses three sea shanties: “Princess Royal”, “Admiral Benbow”, and “Portsmouth.” Vaughan Williams created an orchestral version in 1942, which later became the theme music for the British television show Billy Bunter and the startup music for Anglia Television.
Here it is in a recorded performance by the North Texas Wind Symphony:
And as it was on Anglia Television:
The tune of Princess Royal appears to come from a publication by the Irish harpist and composer Turlough O’Carolan (1670-1738), although it may have originated as an English folk song before that – by the time of Sea Songs‘s publication, it was certainly in use as a shanty called “The Arethusa”. A more thorough history can be found here. Here it is in a guitar arrangement of O’Carolan’s version:
“Admiral Benbow” tells the story of a real Admiral John Benbow, a naval hero in the late 1600s. This entertaining video by the Men from Off has the bare bones of the song, plus some explanation of his exploits, all sung in a real pub bearing his name:
“Portsmouth” is an instrumental dance tune from at least 1701 that Vaughan Williams slows significantly:
The internet teems with resources about Sea Songs. Wikipedia has a nice overview. IMSLP has the music (though it’s not public domain in the US for another 30 years). Leo Quirk wrote a very nice blog post that picks apart Vaughan Williams’s compositional methods. This Prezi is a nice summary of everything you’d want to know about the piece. There is also a young band version of the piece: it changes the key, but preserves most of the rest of the piece.
The Ralph Vaughan Williams Society – the source for anything you might ever possibly want to know about the composer.