Kingsfold (Leonard Ballantine)

“Kingsfold” is the name given to a British folk melody associated with the words of Jessie Adams hymn, I feel the winds of God today, today my sail I lift.? The tune was originally arranged for church use by Ralph Vaughan Williams who loved to use folk influences in his larger orchestral works. This setting for brass band attempts to highlight both the sea imagery of the text and the modal harmonic world of Vaughn Williams? writing. In doing so, we are confronted by the wistful longing of the soul to find faith and safety in the nearness of Christ's presence. Thought by some scholars to date back to the Middle Ages, Kingsfold is a folk tune set to a variety of texts in England and Ireland. The tune was published in English Country Songs (1893), an anthology compiled by Lucy E. Broadwood and J. A. Fuller Maitland. After having heard the tune in Kingsfold, Sussex, England (thus its name), Ralph Vaughan Williams introduced it as a hymn tune in The English Hymnal (1906) as a setting for Horatius Bonar’s “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say” (488). Shaped in classic rounded bar form (AABA), Kingsfold has modal character and is both dignified and strong. It is well suited to either unison or harmony singing. (Time 8:30)