In Search of Song: The Life and Times of Lucy Broadwood

The Broadwood family founded England's oldest and most famous piano making companies in West Sussex in the 18th century. Lucy Broadwood (1858-1929) is now best known as a pioneer of the folk song revival of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It was largely through her efforts that the Folk Song Society was able to preserve so many of the traditional songs she loved. The family was attentive to local folk music and customs, exemplified in the folksong collecting of Lucy's uncle, the Reverend John Broadwood (d. 1864).Dorothy de Val provides an indispensable consideration of Lucy's connections with key figures in musical circles and her influence upon a younger generation of composers such as Percy Grainger, Charles Lidgey, George Butterworth, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Norman O'Neill and Cyril Scott. Vaughan Williams was particularly impressed with her 'brilliant talents' as pianist, singer, composer and essayist. The book reveals Lucy's part in the rapidly changing musical landscape at the turn of the century, her development as a performer and her vibrant social life in the world of music and concerts. Her academic nature led her to haunt various London libraries in search of the origins of the songs she had collected and she edited the Journal of the Folk Song Society for nearly two decades. Her interests were always wider than just music and she made important links with contemporary artists, folklorists, writers and philosophers. Unlike most other collectors, Lucy was able to combine a lively 'art music' life within established musical circles with the rather more eclectic and novel realm of folksong. Her biography reveals a woman of great character and stamina who, along with other strong women of her circle, emerged from the constrictions of a Victorian upbringing into the heady maelstrom of the modern world and met its many challenges.