Seiber arranged The Handsome Butcher from a folksong that was collected by Bartok. The body of the song concerns the striking attributes of the butcher in fanfare-like tonic-dominant structures but there is a staccato prestosting the tail.The Hungarian composer and teacher Matyas Seiber who spent most of his life in Britain had a remarkably broad musical understanding. In his oeuvre can be discerned influences of Schoenberg Bartok jazz and clearly in The Handsome Butcher folksong both British and Continental.
