Another view of Cecil Sharp - er, not for me!

[ardcarp]

Past Forward

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0015l0l

The above was on Radio 4 today. Do not be put off by the first few minutes of popular rubbish. The programme's 'mission' is to pick a spot in the UK by random (and obviously completely spurious) means. However it landed on Somerset and focused mainly on Cecil Sharp's Folk-Song collecting. CS is something of a hero to most musicians, not least because he preserved hundreds of folk melodies ...and words...that would otherwise have been lost. The programme presented an alternative view, saying that CS's publishing of the folksongs with accompaniment ruined their essential rustic origins and 'put them in the middle-class parlour'.* There may be an element of truth in this, but without the efforts of CS, RVW and others, the folksongs would have disappeared without trace. Mrs A, a Somerset lass, lived not far from where the programme 'landed' and in her village primary school many of the folksongs were sung by the whole class. Hard to imagine it now, but at least the songs exist and can be resurrected...as possibly suggested by the programme.

* Incidentally, when I took my Performer's Diploma in Singing in 1971, one of the pieces had to be an unaccompanied folksong. I've no idea if the Licenciate syllabus includes that now. It ought to. I chose 'Oh the cuckoo she's a pretty bird', pre-dating, I think, CS's collecting period.

Correction: This from the internet, "...[a] version of The Cuckoo is just one of many and was sung to Cecil Sharp by Mrs Jarret of Bridgwater, Somerset in April 1908.

[cloughie]

Past Forward

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0015l0l

The above was on Radio 4 today. Do not be put off by the first few minutes of popular rubbish. The programme's 'mission' is to pick a spot in the UK by random (and obviously completely spurious) means. However it landed on Somerset and focused mainly on Cecil Sharp's Folk-Song collecting. CS is something of a hero to most musicians, not least because he preserved hundreds of folk melodies ...and words...that would otherwise have been lost. The programme presented an alternative view, saying that CS's publishing of the folksongs with accompaniment ruined their essential rustic origins and 'put them in the middle-class parlour'.* There may be an element of truth in this, but without the efforts of CS, RVW and others, the folksongs would have disappeared without trace. Mrs A, a Somerset lass, lived not far from where the programme 'landed' and in her village primary school many of the folksongs were sung by the whole class. Hard to imagine it now, but at least the songs exist and can be resurrected...as possibly suggested by the programme.

* Incidentally, when I took my Performer's Diploma in Singing in 1971, one of the pieces had to be an unaccompanied folksong. I've no idea if the Licenciate syllabus includes that now. It ought to. I chose 'Oh the cuckoo she's a pretty bird', pre-dating, I think, CS's collecting period.

Correction: This from the internet, "...[a] version of The Cuckoo is just one of many and was sung to Cecil Sharp by Mrs Jarret of Bridgwater, Somerset in April 1908.

Strange criticism that Sharp should publish with accompaniment but without it how would we have known the tune? The evolution of folk music really makes it what is and preserves it whether unaccompanied, simply accompanied, orchestrated or folk-rock.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Strange criticism that Sharp should publish with accompaniment but without it how would we have known the tune? The evolution of folk music really makes it what is and preserves it whether unaccompanied, simply accompanied, orchestrated or folk-rock.

Absolutely.

[Serial_Apologist]

Strange criticism that Sharp should publish with accompaniment but without it how would we have known the tune? The evolution of folk music really makes it what is and preserves it whether unaccompanied, simply accompanied, orchestrated or folk-rock.

When Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger "reconstituted" traditional folk songs in their original garb (supposedly?) in the 1950s, they restored them with modal harmonic accompaniments not that different from those Vaughan Williams and George Butterworth had used half a century previously in their own settings. This evolved into an alternative generic to that of the Austro-German school these composers were getting away from, and I am convinced fed into the kind of modal jazz that came later: John Coltrane (or whichever American jazz person first adapted it) must have been aware of this when he began using Greensleeves as a vehicle for improvisation.