The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

George Butterworth is one of my favourite early 20th Century English composers.
He was friends with Cecil Sharp, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Hugh Allen, and Adrian Boult.

There is very little of his music in existence, in part because he was killed in the Battle of the Somme in 1916 at a fairly young age and in part because he destroyed most of his unfinished work before going off to war. He understood the casualty rates, and he did not want unfinished work to be published, ever. The little music he left is brilliant, very much of its time and very much rooted in English Folk Music--but it is also timeless and beautiful.

His friend Boult, a conductor after the war, recorded some of Butterworth's music on the HMV label in the 1920s and 1940s. I have never seen any of these disks. Are they rare? Are they valuable?

Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Butterworth


Butterworth Morris Dancing in 1912:

https://youtu.be/X7UZ4WXI9sc?si=snr6tRm3PI_j1RQg


TRAILER: ALL MY LIFE'S BURIED HERE - The Story of George Butterworth:

https://youtu.be/M-l0c1Zo4Pk?si=M5fRJ1NQHsyGBuLs

On H.M.V. record D 520, made in 1920, Adrian Boult conducts the British Symphony Orchestra in Butterworth's Shropshire Lad Rhapsody. It is a fine performance which gives the lie to the old falsehood that orchestras were not allowed to play quietly when recording by the acoustic process; the brasses sometimes sound a little harsh, but nature of the scoring is such that the small number of strings does not greatly matter, and the detail is remarkably clear. I am sure this record must be quite scarce, since the market for orchestral recordings (especially of works by modern composers) must have been still very limited, but I do not suppose it is particularly collectable; however, I have cherished it for more than forty years.

Oliver Mundy.

Menophanes wrote: Fri Jan 10, 2025 3:56 am On H.M.V. record D 520, made in 1920, Adrian Boult conducts the British Symphony Orchestra in Butterworth's Shropshire Lad Rhapsody. It is a fine performance which gives the lie to the old falsehood that orchestras were not allowed to play quietly when recording by the acoustic process; the brasses sometimes sound a little harsh, but nature of the scoring is such that the small number of strings does not greatly matter, and the detail is remarkably clear. I am sure this record must be quite scarce, since the market for orchestral recordings (especially of works by modern composers) must have been still very limited, but I do not suppose it is particularly collectable; however, I have cherished it for more than forty years.

Oliver Mundy.

Thank you for the reply.

The 1920 Boult/BSO acoustically recorded release of Butterworth's Shropshire Lad Rhapsody seems to be quite uncommon. I can find only one listing for it online and that on a Bandcamp site where it is it available for listening in digital form--pay for download, sadly. It is part of a larger collection of Boult's acoustic recordings.

https://crqeditions.bandcamp.com/track/ ... ember-1920

Boult's 1942 release of the rhapsody with the Hallé Orchestra is more readily found, EBay asking prices ranging from about 5 to 15 GBP, which if one were actually in the UK would not be too eye-wateringly dear, eye-watering, yes, but perhaps not too. But by the time international shipping costs, quite variable from seller to seller, are added in, the costs become prohibitive. And then there is the definite risk of shipping a 78 and subjecting it to the rough handling of courier, postal service, and customs and excise thugs. Sigh ....

There are at least three digital dubs of the Boult's 1942 recording at Archive.org. The one referenced in the link below is not the best transfer as the disk seems to be in slightly poorer condition than the others, but it offers the convenience of having both sides of the disk in the same file. Archive.org allows free downloading.

https://archive.org/details/shropshire_lad_Halle

Of the two recordings, I think I prefer the 1920 BSO one.

I am quite fond of this modern Mark Elder-Hallé recording of Butterworth, Delius, and Grainger pieces--very sympathetic performances of the Butterworth music in particular, I think.
https://www.discogs.com/release/1616412 ... h-Rhapsody

I agree with you both; Butterworth was a lovely composer and anyone with the slightest interest in 20th Century British music should explore his small surviving output of songs and orchestral works. In Butterworth's case, truely does art conceal art.

Should anyone find themselves in York, you can look at Butterworth's surprisingly modest house, considering his father was General Manager of the North Eastern Railway and somebody of considerable standing within Edwardian society, in Driffield Terrace just off The Mount on the way out to the racecourse. There is a plaque on the wall which can be seen from the road.

All the best

Tim W-W