Folk Connections in Early Music: EMS 31 January

[doversoul1]

For Radio 3's Folk Connections weekend, Lucie Skeaping explores the influence of folk music on performance of early music, and plays examples by Jordi Savall, The Harp Consort, City Waites, Concerto Caledonia and others.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06yjk08

[Lat-Literal]

For Radio 3's Folk Connections weekend, Lucie Skeaping explores the influence of folk music on performance of early music, and plays examples by Jordi Savall, The Harp Consort, City Waites, Concerto Caledonia and others.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06yjk08

Many thanks for highlighting this programme doversoul.

I will listen to it with interest.

[ardcarp]

I'm so glad Gibbons' Cryes of London sneaked in under the guise of Folk Music! I've loved that piece ever since I first took part in it as a student.

"Sweep chimney sweep; then shall no soot fall in your podrrdge pot with a hey derry derry derry sweep".

[teamsaint]

Not EMS, but in lieu of starting a thread in " The Choir", I thought there was some good stuff in todays programme with Paul Sartin.

[jean]

Just started listening to this now - still remember the shock when Gaudete, which I'd known for ages in a rarefied Early Music context, was suddenly all over the place thanks to Steeleye Span!

[jean]

Lucie has been accused elsewhere of snobbery - but as I observed in reply there, the more explication, the less music so I think playing sequences of pieces without a separate introduction for each wasn't so terrible, or at all snobbish.

I was surprised, though, that she included her performance of The Three Ravens in a Scottish set - it's the related Twa Corbies that's Scottish. She also missed some of the song's subtlety by claiming that the Knight was buried by an actual doe, though she sang the last line God grant every gentle man/Such horse, such hounds, and such a leman, which should have mande the meaning clear.

(Actually I was reminded of hearing a respected Early Music conductor I will not name introducing Cornysh's Ah, Robin as though the singer was addressing an actual robin.)

She could have usefully said a bit more about the the Cries of London sub-genre, and found a better version than Red Byrd's unnecessarily muddled one (unless of course the extra muddle is the result of some new research I don't know about).

[ardcarp]

I quite like Red Byrd's earthy versions of things, even their faux Mummerset, e.g. in See, see the Word is incarnate. I wouldn't want it to be my main version, but it's an interesting take.

[Richard Tarleton]

Lucie has been accused elsewhere of snobbery - but as I observed in reply there, the more explication, the less music so I think playing sequences of pieces without a separate introduction for each wasn't so terrible, or at all snobbish.

Quite, jean. The charge of snobbery is bizarre. What Lucie did, at least twice (hence possibly the poster's complaint on the other thread about pieces being played in the wrong order, if he/she hadn't been paying attention) was the common convention of naming the second, third and fourth pieces to be played, and then saying "and starting with....". The premise of the programme was perfectly clear.

I thought it a lovely programme, interesting to hear familiar pieces in unfamiliar settings. I know Byrd's versions of The Woods So Wild for harpsichord (in My Lady Nevell's Booke) and lute well (they're different) and attempt the latter on the guitar, as I do Anon's John Come Kiss Me Now. I seem to have multiple versions of these pieces on CD - there is a rich repertoire of 16th century and earlier popular tunes set (often/usually in the form of variations) by every composer of the day. And as a plucker I loved Rob MacKillop's rendition of The Flowers of the Forest on the bandora.

PS I see you've made that very point on the other thread, jean (about "but first...")

[Lat-Literal]

When struggling a little with French in junior school, I could sing every word of Steeleye Span's "Gaudete" as if it were in English. The power of music in relation to learning!

I listened to this programme today and in many respects it was the one I wanted. Not only did I enjoy all of the music but it gave me links to Byrd and Gibbons as well as Haydn and Purcell. The Gibbons piece "Cryes of London I and II" was of particular note and like Richard Tarleton I appreciated Rob MacKillop's rendition of 'The Flowers of the Forest'. But it was the context that was especially useful - information about the to-ing and fro-ing between formal writing and the often working class oral tradition - and also the names of composers, performers and collectors other than the familiar Sharp and MacColl which will prove useful to further exploration. Oh, and the Olivia Chaney track was a great ending.