Songs of the East Coast Fishermen

100 years ago English composer Vaughan Williams visited Norfolk (an area on the east coast of England) to collect and notate folk songs from people of all trades and callings. Accompanied by a local clergyman, he visited The Tilden Smith, a pub which was a favourite haunt of the ‘Northenders’, the local fishermen, and in less than a week the composer had notated 61 songs. Vaughan Williams incorporated the best of these songs into his own music, most notably in A Norfolk Rhapsody and the Sea Symphony. Philip Sparke has composed this new suite based on five of these folk songs together with King’s Lynn, a folk song which Vaughan Williams adapted into a popular hymn tune. Whynot bring a piece of traditional English heritage to any concert with this melodious new work.