I like English pastoral music - Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederic Delius, and this one by George Butterworth, who sadly was killed in the trenches of the Somme at the age of only 31. Like many, his body was never recovered. An avid collector of folk tunes and folk dances - 450 of them - in his short life, it seems appropriate to quote the 'In Memoriam' written in 1916, a month after his death.......
So thou hast died for England! with thy 'boys'
Around thee. Sad and strange it seems to me
That thou should'st die this death, when peaceful joys,
Creative art, music and song, (for thee
Thy rightful heritage, and proper aim)
Were thine. Thy country called thee! Age to man,
And beast, a faithful friend, to kill and maim
Was alien to thy kindly nature's plan.
'Whom the gods love, die young.' It must have been
Inferno to thy gentle soul! Hell's noise,
Such frightful sounds, and sights, the world's ne'er seen!
But born aloft on Death's soft, sable wing,
Thou hearest,
now, the Heavenly Voices sing.
The folk songs are all preserved, written in George's own hand, in the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library and are accessible online. But now the peaceful music, accompanied with genuine shots of the Shropshire countryside.
Maurice