George Butterwoth: A Shropshire Lad

George Butterworth, 1885 - 1916 English composer best known for the orchestral idyll 'The Banks of Green Willow' and his song settings of A. E. Housman's poems from 'A Shropshire Lad'.
This 'orchestral rhapsody' c. 1912. is based on the same poems and breaths the very air of England condensed into orchestral form. The video attempts to capture the spirit of the English landscape once familiar to George Butterworth and to the poet A. E. Housman. It is for this land and for what its people stood for that George Butterworth and that lost generation fought so hard to defend!
Enjoy this video including images portraying what was, and still is quintessentially in spirit truly English. This includes all that was once familiar and cherished by that lost generation, many writers, poets, composers artists and hard working men of toil, all with a noble vision of what they were defending.

George Butterworth - 'A Shropshire Lad' (Orchestral Rhapsody)
London Philharmonic Orchestra - Adrian Boult.
Album: Butterworth: A "Shropshire Lad" Rhapsody

[improcat]

One of my favourites. A beautiful atmospheric piece, used to great effect in the wonderful Terence Davies film "The Long Day Closes" Thank you.