''Sea Songs'' is an arrangement of three British sea-songs by the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. It is based on the songs "Princess Royal", " Admiral Benbow" and "

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council. Portsmouth is the most dens ...

". The work is a

march March is the third month of the year in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. It is the second of seven months to have a length of 31 days. In the Northern Hemisphere, the meteorological beginning of spring occurs on the first day of March ...

of roughly four minutes duration. It follows a ternary structure, with opening material based on "Princess Royal" and "Admiral Benbow", with "Portsmouth" forming the central section before a return to the opening material featuring the first two songs. The march was arranged for

military band A military band is a group of personnel that performs musical duties for military functions, usually for the armed forces. A typical military band consists mostly of wind and percussion instruments. The conductor of a band commonly bears the ti ...

in 1923 as the second movement of '' English Folk Song Suite'', and the world premiere of the suite was given at

Kneller Hall Kneller Hall is a Grade II listed mansion in Whitton, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. It housed the Royal Military School of Music, training musicians for the British Army, which acquired the building in the mid-19th century. I ...

on 4 July 1923. As a single work, its first performance was given at

Wembley Wembley () is a large suburbIn British English, "suburb" often refers to the secondary urban centres of a city. Wembley is not a suburb in the American sense, i.e. a single-family residential area outside of the city itself. in north-west Londo ...

during the

British Empire Exhibition The British Empire Exhibition was a colonial exhibition held at Wembley Park, London England from 23 April to 1 November 1924 and from 9 May to 31 October 1925. Background In 1920 the British Government decided to site the British Empire Exhibi ...

in April 1924. This work, as well as the ''English Folk Song Suite'', stemmed from Vaughan Williams' admiration for the band of the

Royal Military School of Music The Royal Military School of Music (RMSM) trains musicians for the British Army's fourteen regular bands, as part of the Royal Corps of Army Music. Until August 2021, the school was based at Kneller Hall in Twickenham, however it moved to HMS ...

at Kneller Hall. The work was re-arranged for full orchestra in 1942 by the composer. The term "sea songs" may also be used to refer to any songs about or concerned with ships and seafarers. Such songs (including

sea shanties A sea shanty, chantey, or chanty () is a genre of traditional folk song that was once commonly sung as a work song to accompany rhythmical labor aboard large merchant sailing vessels. The term ''shanty'' most accurately refers to a specific ...

and other

work song A work song is a piece of music closely connected to a form of work, either sung while conducting a task (usually to coordinate timing) or a song linked to a task which might be a connected narrative, description, or protest song. Definitions and ...

s) are most commonly classed as

folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has b ...

and are a major feature of maritime festivals held at seaports (and some river-ports) around the UK. ;Incipit of "Princess Royal" : ;Incipit of "Admiral Benbow" : ;Incipit of "Portsmouth" :

Performances and recordings

The Vaughan Williams piece became well known in the United Kingdom as the theme tune to the BBC television adaptation of ''

Billy Bunter William George Bunter is a fictional schoolboy created by Charles Hamilton using the pen name Frank Richards. He features in stories set at Greyfriars School, a fictional English public school in Kent, originally published in the boys' weekly ...

'' in the 1950s, which used the central, "Portsmouth", section as its title music. It was also used as the start-up music to

Anglia Television ITV Anglia, previously known as Anglia Television, is the ITV franchise holder for the East of England. The station is based at Anglia House in Norwich, with regional news bureaux in Cambridge and Northampton. ITV Anglia is owned and operated b ...

until the early 1980s. Both used the 1955 orchestral recording of the work performed by the New Concert Orchestra, conducted by Nat Nyll, which was part of the Boosey & Hawkes

music library A music library contains music-related materials for patron use. Collections may also include non-print materials, such as digitized music scores or audio recordings. Use of such materials may be limited to specific patron groups, especially in ...

. This version is available on CD. Other more recent stereo recordings include performances conducted by

Richard Hickox Richard Sidney Hickox (5 March 1948 – 23 November 2008) was an English conductor of choral, orchestral and operatic music. Early life Hickox was born in Stokenchurch in Buckinghamshire into a musical family. After attending the Royal Gram ...

with the

Northern Sinfonia Royal Northern Sinfonia is a British chamber orchestra, founded in Newcastle upon Tyne and currently based in Gateshead. For the first 46 years of its history, the orchestra gave most of its concerts at the Newcastle City Hall. Since 2004, the ...

Leonard Slatkin Leonard Edward Slatkin (born September 1, 1944) is an American conductor, author and composer. Early life and education Slatkin was born in Los Angeles to a Jewish musical family that came from areas of the Russian Empire now in Ukraine. His fat ...

with the Philharmonia Orchestra,

George Hurst George Hurst may refer to: * George Hurst (conductor) (1926–2012), British conductor * George Hurst (artist) (born 1933), American leather artist * George Samuel Hurst (1927–2010), health physicist, scientist, inventor, educator and innovator ...

with the

Bournemouth Sinfonietta The Bournemouth Sinfonietta was a chamber orchestra founded in 1968 as an offshoot of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. It was disbanded in November 1999 after increasing difficulties in obtaining funding from local councils led to the decisio ...

and Paul Murphy with the

Royal Ballet Sinfonia The Royal Ballet Sinfonia is the orchestra of Birmingham Royal Ballet. The Sinfonia appears with Birmingham Royal Ballet in its home town, in London and around the UK, and frequently appears with The Royal Ballet at the Royal Opera House and on ...

. The original military band score is available in a recording by the Royal Northern College of Music Wind Orchestra conducted by Timothy Reynish. To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Vaughan Williams, the piece was performed at the 2008

Last Night of the Proms The BBC Proms or Proms, formally named the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts Presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert H ...

, in place of the traditional '' Fantasia on British Sea Songs'' by Sir

Henry Joseph Wood Sir Henry Joseph Wood (3 March 186919 August 1944) was an English conductor best known for his association with London's annual series of promenade concerts, known as the The Proms, Proms. He conducted them for nearly half a century, introd ...

, founding conductor of

the Proms The BBC Proms or Proms, formally named the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts Presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hal ...

, and friend of Vaughan Williams.BBC Proms 2008 – a festival spirit. The 114th BBC Proms 18 July to 13 September 2008.
Under the title ''The Last Night'', it is stated, "an orchestral version of Vaughan Williams's ''Sea Songs'' (rather than Henry Wood's ''Fantastia on British Sea-Songs'') in celebration of the composer's anniversary in 2008." Accessed July 14, 2008

References

{{Authority control Compositions by Ralph Vaughan Williams Concert band pieces 1923 compositions British marches Sea shanties