The tradition of people singing about their experiences
in work songs, love songs and spiritual songs is common all over the
world. The words and music of each particular song, however, reflect the
cultural and historical circumstances of its time and place. This disc
presents a selection, widespread but by no means comprehensive, of
folksongs of different sorts from many different places.
A significant proportion of songs from the British Isles
are love songs, whether cheerful (Dashing away with the smoothing iron),
more philosophical (O Waly Waly), or just morbid (Molly Malone). Many New
World songs, such as Shenandoah and Botany Bay, reflect colonial
circumstances, although the latter was as popular in England as in
Australia in the 19th century, and indeed the version in common use was
written for an English music hall production in 1885. Spirituals and hymns
also often have folk origins. From France and Germany have come several
Christmas songs, some of which have entered the international repertoire,
such as Il est né le divin enfant. The Negro Spiritual, of which many
examples occur on this disc, owes its origin to the slave trade. Black
African slaves in the south of the United States turned to religion for
solace, which generated a huge number of beautiful spiritual songs
speaking of deliverance from their situation by freedom or death.
From a musical point of view, influences are
multifarious. The Western European Classical tradition has a strong
influence on melodies, although in parts of Eastern Europe this was
leavened by polyphonic Orthodox Church chants. The Negro Spiritual took
influences from Africa, as well as church hymn-singing (which was in turn
influenced by Western Europe). Then there are local influences: Il est né
is based on a royal hunting-call of Louis XV. Many songs from different
parts of England are very similar in words and music: often, there are
many different versions of the same song.
We owe our knowledge of many of these songs to a number
of musicians and others who went about their countries collecting songs in
the years around 1900. In England, the English Folk Dance and Song
Society, whose leaders included Ralph Vaughan Williams and Cecil Sharp,
collected and recorded many songs. Vaughan Williams wrote arrangements of
many of these songs, including The turtle dove. Other collectors and
arrangers of folksongs in this period included Percy Grainger, whose
famous arrangement of Brigg fair is included on this disc, and Gustav
Holst, arranger of My sweetheart's like Venus. Elsewhere in Europe,
concerted efforts of a similar nature were made by Béla Bartók and
Mátyás Seiber in Hungary, and also more sporadically in Russia, France
and elsewhere. In many cases, folk traditions influence classical
composers in return. Vaughan Williams, Michael Tippett, Aaron Copland and
Antonín Dvorák (in his New World Symphony) all used melodies from the
folk tradition. Also, folk inflections and instruments appear throughout
classical music, and the melodies and harmonies often define elements of
nationalist music. Similarly, the spiritual tradition was very important
in the development of other genres, such as gospel and jazz.
The collection and dissemination of these songs occurred
just before the increasing homogenisation of culture and music threatened
many of the distinctive traditions from which they came. Thankfully, the
work of these composers and the inspiration they give to subsequent
generations who might otherwise have been ignorant of the folk tradition,
has ensured its lasting legacy.
Keith Roberts
