Six Songs from A Shropshire Lad Song Settings of A. E. Housman's Poems from A Shropshire Lad. - A Selection of Song Cycles Taken from the Online Publisher Schubertline.

Schubertline: Songs from this volume are available to transpose into a key of your choice at www.schubertline.co.uk. An online audio example of the songs is also available.

Schubertline first published online scores of songs, arias and lieder in 2001. Since then the library has grown in size to almost 4000 score files, covering many of the best known songs, arias and duets in the classical repertoire.
Schubertline is hosted by the website, Score Exchange.

George Butterworth

Six Songs from A Shropshire Lad

The song cycle is made up of a six poem setting taken from A. E. Housman's 1896 poem collection, A Shropshire Lad.

1. Loveliest of Trees
2. When I Was One-and-Twenty
3. Look Not In My eyes
4. Think No More, Lad
5. The Lads in Their Hundreds
6. Is My Team Ploughing?

Six Songs from A Shropshire Lad, was written for bass baritone and piano and was composed by
George Sainton Kaye Butterworth in 1911.

The song cycle, Bredon Hill and Other Songs, also a setting of five poems from A Shropshire Lad was composed by George Butterworth in 1912.

Alfred Edward Housman was born in Worcestershire, England on March 26, 1859. He was the oldest of seven children.
A year after his birth, Housman's family moved to Bromsgrove, where the poet grew up and had his early education.

In 1877, he attended St. John's College, Oxford where he read Greats. His collection of poems 'A Shropshire Lad' was published in May 1896 and they have been in print continuously since that time.

George Sainton Kaye Butterworth (12 July 1885 - 5 August 1916) was considered one of Britains most promising Edwardian composers. He was born in Paddington, London.

Not long after his birth, his family moved to York. George was the only child of Sir Alexander Kaye Butterworth and his wife Julia Marguerite, née Wigan. Formally a professional singer she gave George his first music lessons.

In 1899 George won a scholarship to Eton College (1899-1904). In 1904 he went up to Oxford where he read Greats at Trinity College.

While at Oxford he became increasingly focused on music. He became President of the University Music Club. He also made friends with the folk song collector Cecil Sharp and the composer and folk song enthusiast Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Butterworth and Vaughan Williams made several trips into the English countryside to collect folk songs.

At the outbreak of the First World War, Butterworth joined the British army.

On 5 August during the Battle of the Somme, George Butterworth died after being shot by a sniper.
He was 31 years old.