Well, as for Grainger.
As a folksong collector his attitude was one of scrupulous accuracy, hence
his use of the phonograph, and all those wax cylinders which he famously
never got around to transcribing. His more-or-less friendly rival Cecil
Sharp collected diferent versions of the same songs, true; but so he could
publish the one he considered most likely to be sung. He wasn't thinking
folksinger or art-song, but Women's Institutes and classes of schoolkids.
Grainger did arrange a few songs for more modern consumption, but I reckon
he preferred the thrill of the chase, and his attitude was quite ruthless
(stories of him pursuing old people said to know songs he hadn't got, from
workhouse to deathbed, and in one case hiding the phonograph under an old
woman's bed, to trick her into recording for him. True, his recording
techniques don't distort the material as Sharp's more subjective pencil must
have done; but unless the cylinders are transcribed, the songs remain as
inaccessible as though they were still uncollected. James Reeves states in
_The Idiom of the People: English Traditional Verse_ (Heinemann '58;
Mercury Books '62) that the Sharp mss in Clare College Cambridge _contain
almost untapped melodic resources_; but these can be deciphered by anyone
who reads musical notation.
I don't like Grainger. I don't like his ruthlessness; nor his insistence on
what he termed the _scientific form_ of the folksong, which puts me in mind
of those collectors of birds'-eggs. On the other hand, there's surely
something that tastes a bit off in Sharp's assertion that folksongs, if
introduced into schools, would _refine and strengthen the national
character_.
Actually (heresy time!), the versions of folksongs I've always enjoyed most,
as a singer and as a listener, are the various choral settings by Vaughan
Williams.
j
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Weiss" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 1:50 AM
Subject: Re: A Note on Kathleen Ferrier (was Re: Minimalists...)
> I think Anderson's spirituals are beyond wonderful, but they're rather
less
> well-loved by much of the black musical community.
>
> Just to point out that the Ferrier folksong recordings I referred to
aren't
> the Britten settings, which also usually make me want to run from the
room.
>
> Any thoughts in this regard about Percy Grainger?
>
> Marki
>
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