Butterworth / Holst

George Butterworth, one of the pre-1914 generation who died in the First World War, left behind a small but lasting body of work. He was introduced to folk music by Ralph Vaughan Williams, but was also a dancer and collector of folk songs and dances - particularly from Sussex. However, it is his orchestral rhapsody 'A Shropshire Lad', inspired by A. E. Houseman, which has become his most famous composition and seems to convey a strong sense of the landscape of this county and melancholy about the waste and futility of war. Like Butterworth, Gustav Holst was a friend of Vaughan Williams, and together the two collected folk songs from all over England. Holst also taught at the Girls' School in Hammersmith, London, and the St. Paul Suite is a personal tribute to the school. Folk songs characterize the two Songs without Words. Holst became friends with Thomas Hardy, and it was during a night walk (at Hardy's insistence) that Holst came up with the inspiration for Egdon Heath.