I mentioned this (the term is mine, but the idea is old) in another thread. It's this -
We use the term 'folk song' to mean many things, but generally an old song that's been handed down, originally orally, from those of the land (or sea, or mines, or factories, etc.). They are part of our culture, our heritage. And some of them really were handed down like that. Until more worldly types got hold of them. Early collectors such as Sabine Baring Gould were interested in preserving the songs in formats that Victorian schoolchildren could sing, or the middle classes could sing in the parlour. Later collectors, such as Lucy Broadwood and Cecil Sharp wanted (1) to preserve the original songs, and (2) provide at least some of them with straightforward accompaniments for general use. Others, such as Percy Grainger, tried to preserve them exactly as sung, with every nuance recorded, but with more 'modern', arty accompaniments. The likes of Vaughan Williams and Butterworth fell between the Broadwood/Sharp and the Grainger/Moeran/Britten school (not that Britten was actually a collector).
One problem all the collectors faced was the words. E. V. Lucas recalled a trip into Sussex with Cecil Sharp; he said of the singers, "An added difficulty for the word-transcriber is the fact that old Sussex labourers have few or no teeth, and Heaven alone knows what sometimes they sing : certainly they themselves do not ...". Most 'collected' songs have alterations to the words - a common thing was to go back to a broadside ballad, if there was one, and use those words instead of the garbled version collected. Collectors such as Butterworth were fastidious in making this clear ; others, such as Vaughan Williams not always so.
One way of avoiding these problems was to fit new words to old tunes. Not that the people I've mentioned did, but there were others. Usually a poet would do it, which is where Robert Burns and Thomas Moore come in - they both loved music, and wrote new words to existing tunes (My love is like a red, red, rose; Scots wa have! ; The minstrel boy ; The meeting of the waters, etc., etc.). Later collectors did this a lot - Herbert Hughes (friend of RVW and Butterworth, father of Spike) published Irish Country Songs in 1909, containing old tunes to which he'd persuaded poets to write new words - Yeats wrote Down by the Salley Gardens, Padraic Colum wrote She Moved Through the Fair, etc. Then there was Marjorie Kennedy-Fraser, whose volumes of Songs of the Hebrides graced many piano stools from the early 1920s. The words are all by Rev. Kenneth McLeod in a mixture of Gaelic and English, but wholly artificial. The best example is perhaps The Road to the Isles, where the tune is actually a pipe-tune called The Burning Sands of Egypt, which was written in 1894. Most of the Kennedy-Fraser tunes are older, though.
Most folk tunes - from whatever source - are relatively recent. Some can be dated to the late 1500s (the one RVW called Dives and Lazarus, and which is also the 1905 Star of the County Down) but most are no older than the 18th century.
One that has a curious history is Danny Boy (Londonderry Air). It was first published in Petrie's collection of Ancient Music of Ireland, in 1853. It was submitted by Miss Jane Ross of Limavady, who said it was a fiddle tune - "very old". But it has stoutly resisted attempts to find older versions. The nearest is a ¾ quickish harp tune in a 1794 book, but it's not that near. It has been speculated that Jane Ross wrote it herself and submitted it as a folk tune.
Anyway - I wanted to get that off my chest. I think of old tunes with new words as 'artificial' folk songs. An example from my lifetime is Andy Stewart's Scottish Soldier. The tune in by Rossini (from Willian Tell) but it was made into a pipe tune by the Pipe Major of the 92nd regiment in the Crimean War. He called it The Green Hills of Tyrol. Andy Stewart then added words in the 1950s.
We use the term 'folk song' to mean many things, but generally an old song that's been handed down, originally orally, from those of the land (or sea, or mines, or factories, etc.). They are part of our culture, our heritage. And some of them really were handed down like that. Until more worldly types got hold of them. Early collectors such as Sabine Baring Gould were interested in preserving the songs in formats that Victorian schoolchildren could sing, or the middle classes could sing in the parlour. Later collectors, such as Lucy Broadwood and Cecil Sharp wanted (1) to preserve the original songs, and (2) provide at least some of them with straightforward accompaniments for general use. Others, such as Percy Grainger, tried to preserve them exactly as sung, with every nuance recorded, but with more 'modern', arty accompaniments. The likes of Vaughan Williams and Butterworth fell between the Broadwood/Sharp and the Grainger/Moeran/Britten school (not that Britten was actually a collector).
One problem all the collectors faced was the words. E. V. Lucas recalled a trip into Sussex with Cecil Sharp; he said of the singers, "An added difficulty for the word-transcriber is the fact that old Sussex labourers have few or no teeth, and Heaven alone knows what sometimes they sing : certainly they themselves do not ...". Most 'collected' songs have alterations to the words - a common thing was to go back to a broadside ballad, if there was one, and use those words instead of the garbled version collected. Collectors such as Butterworth were fastidious in making this clear ; others, such as Vaughan Williams not always so.
One way of avoiding these problems was to fit new words to old tunes. Not that the people I've mentioned did, but there were others. Usually a poet would do it, which is where Robert Burns and Thomas Moore come in - they both loved music, and wrote new words to existing tunes (My love is like a red, red, rose; Scots wa have! ; The minstrel boy ; The meeting of the waters, etc., etc.). Later collectors did this a lot - Herbert Hughes (friend of RVW and Butterworth, father of Spike) published Irish Country Songs in 1909, containing old tunes to which he'd persuaded poets to write new words - Yeats wrote Down by the Salley Gardens, Padraic Colum wrote She Moved Through the Fair, etc. Then there was Marjorie Kennedy-Fraser, whose volumes of Songs of the Hebrides graced many piano stools from the early 1920s. The words are all by Rev. Kenneth McLeod in a mixture of Gaelic and English, but wholly artificial. The best example is perhaps The Road to the Isles, where the tune is actually a pipe-tune called The Burning Sands of Egypt, which was written in 1894. Most of the Kennedy-Fraser tunes are older, though.
Most folk tunes - from whatever source - are relatively recent. Some can be dated to the late 1500s (the one RVW called Dives and Lazarus, and which is also the 1905 Star of the County Down) but most are no older than the 18th century.
One that has a curious history is Danny Boy (Londonderry Air). It was first published in Petrie's collection of Ancient Music of Ireland, in 1853. It was submitted by Miss Jane Ross of Limavady, who said it was a fiddle tune - "very old". But it has stoutly resisted attempts to find older versions. The nearest is a ¾ quickish harp tune in a 1794 book, but it's not that near. It has been speculated that Jane Ross wrote it herself and submitted it as a folk tune.
Anyway - I wanted to get that off my chest. I think of old tunes with new words as 'artificial' folk songs. An example from my lifetime is Andy Stewart's Scottish Soldier. The tune in by Rossini (from Willian Tell) but it was made into a pipe tune by the Pipe Major of the 92nd regiment in the Crimean War. He called it The Green Hills of Tyrol. Andy Stewart then added words in the 1950s.
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