''Sea Songs'' is an arrangement of three British sea-songs by the English composer

Ralph Vaughan Williams Ralph Vaughan Williams ( ; 12 October 1872– 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over ...

. It is based on the songs "

Princess Royal Princess Royal is a substantive title, title customarily (but not automatically) awarded by British monarchs to their eldest daughters. Although purely honorary, it is the highest honour that may be given to a female member of the royal famil ...

", " Admiral Benbow" and "

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Hampshire, England. Most of Portsmouth is located on Portsea Island, off the south coast of England in the Solent, making Portsmouth the only city in En ...

". The work is a

march March is the third month of the year in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. Its length is 31 days. In the Northern Hemisphere, the meteorological beginning of spring occurs on the first day of March. The March equinox on the 20 or 2 ...

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 instrument, wind and percussion instruments. The conducting, conductor of a ...

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

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 Government of the United Kingdom, British Government decide ...

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 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, 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 sp ...

and other

work song A work song is a piece of music closely connected to a form of work, either one sung while conducting a task (usually to coordinate timing) or one linked to a task that may be a connected narrative, description, or protest song. An example is " I ...

s) are most commonly classed as

folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be ca ...

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 BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1 January 1927. It p ...

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 Boosey & Hawkes is a British Music publisher (sheet music), music publisher, purported to be the largest specialist classical music publisher in the world. Until 2003, it was also a major manufacturer of brass instrument, brass, string instru ...

music library. This version is available on CD. Other more recent

stereo Stereophonic sound, commonly shortened to stereo, is a method of sound reproduction that recreates a multi-directional, 3-dimensional audible perspective. This is usually achieved by using two independent audio channels through a configurat ...

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 and education Hickox was born in Stokenchurch in Buckinghamshire into a musical family. After attending ...

with the Northern Sinfonia,

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 The Philharmonia Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It was founded in 1945 by Walter Legge, a classical music record producer for EMI Classics, EMI. Among the conductors who worked with the orchestra in its early years were Rich ...

, George Hurst with the Bournemouth Sinfonietta and Paul Murphy with the Royal Ballet Sinfonia. 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, in place of the traditional '' Fantasia on British Sea Songs'' by Sir Henry Joseph Wood, founding conductor of

the Proms The BBC Proms is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hall in central London. Robert Newman founded The Proms in 1895. Since 1927, the ...

, 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 Compositions using folk songs Maritime culture