DSL92203.Pdf

1 1. John Barleycorn Anonymous 2. In a Garden so Green Anonymous 3. Mr. Dowland’s Midnight John Dowland (1563-1626) 4. Fortune my Foe John Dowland 5. My Lady Hunsdon’s Puffe John Dowland 6. Come Again John Dowland 7. Henry Martyn Anonymous 8. Lully lulle Anonymous 9. Solus cum Sola John Dowland 10. M. George Whitehead, His Almand John Dowland 11. Twa Corbies Anonymous 12. Woods so Wild William Byrd (1543-1623) 13. Ddoi di dai Anonymous Tracks 2, 7, 8, 11, 13 & 14 arranged by Brian Kay Tracks 3, 4, 5, 9 & 10 arranged by Ray Nurse and Ronn McFarlane 14. Nottamun Town Anonymous Track 6 arranged by Brian Kay, Ronn McFarlane and Ray Nurse Tracks 1 & 12 arranged by Ronn McFarlane. 2 What is folk music, what is art (with the happy and fervent partic- have come back to the comfort music; is there some difference? ipation by the “art” composers, level of the late Renaissance. This is an idea that has been like Sibelius). Where would our There may have been some debated (fruitlessly, it could be own American musical life be distinction, but there was no argued) over the centuries. had not Charles Seeger taken his discomfort in arranging a popular wife and his baby Pete (and that ditty of the day in any way that Some see the so-called rise of car and proto-trailer hitch) on struck a composers’ fancy. interest in folk music to be a a journey to the Southlands to We could ask, to what extent product of the nationalism of the “bring music to the people?” As Romantic era. In this narrative, did the brooding and brilliant is so often the case, and as Pete John Dowland absorb popular as European nation-building himself often said, he learned Brian Kay evolved in the age of revolu- dances and old songs and simply vocals, lute & komuz more than he taught. tions, organized collecting of oral rearrange them? We could see traditions becomes another way It is interesting to know that the these forms as a platform on Ronn McFarlane best-selling music book of the which he built wonders. We lute of forging a national identity. In a vast arc that includes Robert 1700s was Corelli’s Opus 5 Trio could also see him as an inventor, Willard Morris Burns and his hugely popular Sonatas. The beloved Italian was breaking out of the structures of colascione celebration of Scottish song, a legitimate “art” composer. It is the past. The greatest geniuses in through Zoltán Kodály 120 years also very pungent to think that art happily embody all sources, all Mattias Rucht the best-selling music book of contradictions. percussion later taking a cylinder phonograph to rural villages, “songs of the entire 1800s was Thomas William Byrd was one of those, the people” became somehow Moore’s Irish Melodies; he was and thinking about how T.S. separated from music composed partly inspired by ”art” composers Eliot separated genius by those by people who were (to put it who had set folk songs before who concentrated on one thing crassly) paid for their efforts. him, Haydn and Beethoven most (Wagner, say, or for us, Dowland) famously. The collectors of the Finnish versus the universalists who Kalevala knew this was the core And now, in our time: what is mastered many things, Byrd was not only of a national identity but folk, what is art? In the case of surely in the latter camp. The also of a free and distinct country the recording before you, we may Catholic recusant who inherited 3 the exclusive music publishing when Butterworth was killed in One Morning (DSL-92111). These much speculation as to the exact rights in Queen Elizabeth’s action at the Somme, Cecil Sharp are the ideal example of how a meaning of the odd and obscure England after the death of his was recording songs of our own so-called old instrument (some story; there is a lot of this mystery master Thomas Tallis could mountain people. have even said obsolete, and at in the folk tradition, and there is literally compose in any form; that The early music movement gave one time abandoned) can take on a a lot of this in poetry itself. When among many folk songs, he chose a great boost to the relevance living and vital relevance. the song was new and fresh, a favorite of Henry VIII (and a and quality of the folk song, and The ensemble blends the “art” and these images surely had profound song quoted by Dowland in “Can Alfred Deller and his Consort “folk” traditions so organically, impact, and those first singers She Excuse My Wrongs”, setting often performed the Vaughan we are reminded how artificial knew it and would sing it with Robert Devereux’s plea for favor Williams settings in their concerts. such a separation actually is. that passion that only knowers from Elizabeth when he had fallen “John Barleycorn,” the witty view can know. It may be that passion, from grace) is telling on many In the late ‘60s, many things if not the unknown and secret were born. The British Folk Rock of brewing as an act of torture and levels. He set fourteen variations abuse, is so perfect that Vaughan meaning, that has kept the song in his keyboard version, and knew movement, as it was called, was alive so long. one. Trying to decide “how it Williams himself wondered if well the first chapter of Matthew: it may have been created by “Twa Corbies,” the Scottish “So all the generations from started” is actually a little silly; victory has a thousand fathers, “an antiquarian revivalist,” who version of “The Three Ravens,” Abraham to David are fourteen then saw it pass “into popular was a Steeleye Span specialty generations…” after all. But there is no doubt that Fairport Convention, Steeleye currency and become ‘folklo- (as well as being an Alfred We may be more familiar with Span, Pentangle, the Incredible rised’.” Many in the folk-rock Deller favorite). Death was more the re-popularization of so-called String Band, and their many movement recorded the song, immediate and more present to folk music in our own country. fellows introduced generations to most prominently the group the singers of traditional song; In pre-World War I England, we music of the tradition. And, they Traffic in their album named for it still may be so. In any event, have the incomparable work of did it well. Not incidentally, they the song itself. mementi mori, reminders of our Francis James Child and his 305 and their individual members “Nottamun Town” was recorded eventual end, are everywhere in ballads of blood and woe, tragedy often performed and recorded by Fairport, and even more the tradition. and loss, haunting and (in every “early music” as well. famously with new lyrics in Bob The dying knight in the Corpus once a while) happy endings. The Dylan’s “Masters of War”— Christi Carol (“Lully lulle, the great Cecil Sharp brought back It was a happy unity of many things. Ayreheart inherits that following in the ancient broadside falcon”) tended by the maid knew Morris Dancing and put the young tradition of adding new lyrics to well of these songs. Is it simply George Butterworth and Ralph tradition wonderfully. Ronn McFarlane has given us two discs an old tune. Is it really medieval? a medieval allegory for the death Vaughan Williams to work in the We can’t even pin down a tune of Christ? Is the falcon attached Fen Country gathering songs. on Sono Luminus of his own original work on lute, Indigo Road like “Greensleeves,” so we may to Catherine of Aragon during her During the war, Sharp came never really know. There is exile, or later to Anne Boleyn, over to the Appalachians, and (DSL-90701), and with Ayreheart 4 whose emblem was that bird? Was Portuguese ships for James it really “first found by an appren- IV. His ship was captured, and tice grocer named Richard Hill he was killed in 1511 by the in a manuscript written around Howard brothers (Sir Edward and 1504”? The version Vaughan Thomas), acting on behalf of the Williams collected featured young Henry VIII. the Virgin Mary sitting by the “In a Garden So Green” may bedside; Peter Warlock set it as date back to 1682 in a Scottish a memorial to those who died in collection of Songs & Fancies, World War I. Jeff Buckley gave it but it also takes us back 25 years meaning and relevance to a new to the early days of the wonderful generation. Maybe rather than Baltimore Consort, and one of thinking we can “know” about this their popular Scottish projects mysterious and wonderful work, (also on Dorian) On the Banks of let’s just rejoice that it exists. Brian Kay recorded with record labels Avie Helicon (DOR-90139). vocals, lute, komuz and Sono Luminus, topped the The New World Renaissance Billboard charts twice this year, Ronn McFarlane was true to Brian Kay is a modern-day Band used to perform “Ddoi di and has recorded two acoustic his ancestry then, and has kept troubadour. A critically acclaimed Dai,” and to them it was “a lament solo albums; Ocean (2013) that flame alive in creative and singer and instrumentalist, Brian for David (Daffydd ap Gruffydd), and Three Ravens (2015). He newly-evolving ways with performs throughout the US, the last independent Prince of performs with Apollo’s Fire, Ayreheart. Is it art music? Is it both as a solo artist, and with a Wales who was executed by Ayreheart, Hesperus, Twa folk? Could it possibly matter number of esteemed ensembles.

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