introduced Holst to the wealth of musical inspiration from traditional English folk
melodies. He married Isobel Harrison in 1901 and taught at the James Allen's Girls'
School in Dulwich before being appointed Director of Music at St. Paul's Girls' School
in Hammersmith in 1905, a position he retained until the end of his life. Holst's
heavy and exhausting teaching schedule, compounded with his neuroses, left little
time for composing. After the success of The Planets (a piece Holst never considered
to be his best), Holst’s reputation as a composer was at its height. So stressful was
his career as teacher, conductor and composer, that in 1924 he was ordered by
a doctor to cancel all professional engagements and to live in the country. In his
distinction in the arts and the gold medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society. He was
appointed visiting lecturer in composition at Harvard University in 1932 but soon
after became ill. On his return to England in the summer of that year, Holst's health
continued to decline. He died in May 1934.
Holst composed these two choruses as part of a larger set of folk songs in 1916 for
time Holst had set either melody, however, as both appear in his Second Suite in F for
Military Band of 1911. Both tunes were collected and transcribed by George Barnet
Gardiner, a professor at Edinburgh Academy interested in the preservation of the
folk song tradition around the British isles. In just a few years, Gardiner had collected
1460 folk song texts and 1165 melodies!
The robust Swansea Town is an example of a Capstan or Windlass shanty; these
shanties were sung during repetitive tasks that needed to be sustained with the
appropriate rhythm as when raising or lowering the anchor. The sturdy rhythm and
strong downbeats conjure up images of burly sailors toiling away on deck. Perhaps a
few chapters after “The Sailor and Young Nancy,” we encounter the sailor lured away
by the open sea, although now he has a few more years’ seasoning. Although he
hates to leave Nancy again, he’s even more excited to return to Swansea Town. After
a tumultuous passage on the good old ship (complete with seasick-inducing rising
and falling chromatic lines in the basses), the crew safely makes it to port, where all
Oh! Farewell to you my Nancy, ten thousand times adieu,
I’m bound to cross the ocean, girl, once more to part with you;
But still I live in hopes to see old Swansea Town once more.
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