Lincolnshire Posy is a musical composition by Percy Grainger for concert band commissioned in 1937 by the American Bandmasters Association.
[4] Unlike other composers who attempted to alter and modernize folk music, such as Ralph Vaughan Williams, Grainger wished to maintain the exact stylizing that he experienced from the originals.
In the piece's program notes, Grainger wrote: "...Each number is intended to be a kind of musical portrait of the singer who sang its underlying melody—a musical portrait of the singer’s personality no less than of his habits of song—his regular or irregular interpretation of the rhythm, his preference for gaunt or ornately arabesqued delivery, his contrasts of legato and staccato, his tendency towards breadth or delicacy of tone.
Later in the movement, the 1st horns and trumpets quote another Grainger work, entitled "The Duke of Marlborough Fanfare" as the rest of the ensemble continues with a repetition of the theme.
[8][9][10] Based on the ballad of the same name which Grainger had learned from folk singer Joseph Taylor,[5] this movement is considered quite difficult to count due to the counterpoint, unusual rhythms, and rapidly shifting time signatures.
Therefore, most ensembles who record the work in its entirety choose this version in order to stay true to the composer’s wishes.
[7] A simple, short, jaunty tune in the key of B♭ major meant to evoke the image of a strapping young lad striding up the road to meet his sweetheart.
After being missing for a long time, the villagers begin to speculate that the uncle is responsible for her disappearance, later imprisoning him and condemning him to death.