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English Sacred Folk Song of the West Gallery Period (Circa 1695–1820)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Charles W. Pearce
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Extract

Folk song—sacred and secular alike—may be either traditional or ephemeral: that is to say, some of it lives, much of it doesn't. Of the making of folk song there is no end, for from time immemorial it has been an irrepressible outward expression in verse and song of the daily life and common thought of the people. Any striking event or circumstance—national or provincial—has scarcely ever failed to elicit some sort of versification which may vary in character from the local vernacular slang prevalent at the time, to the carefully polished lines of the educated poet. Words so produced get music set to them: those of the better kind attract the pens of cultivated composers; those of the baser sort are set by obscure but publisher-pushed persons who seem to rise up suddenly from the vasty deep, absolutely unskilled in the art of musical composition, but in some mysterious way gifted with a knack of originating—or otherwise supplying—a type of melody easily caught by the public ear, and rapidly transferred from lip to lip of the vulgar multitude, until the whole land is filled with it.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Musical Association , Volume 48 , 1921 , pp. 1 - 27
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Musical Association, 1921

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References

∗ “New Sabbath” (Stockport), Phillips. Bridge's Methodist Hymnal (Appendix), No. 11; S. S. Wesley's European Psalmist, No. 28; Houldsworth's Cheatham's Psalmody, No. 28.Google Scholar

† “Lydia” (Phillips). Methodist Hymn Book (Appendix), No. 6; Houldsworth's Cheetham's Psalmody, No. 58.Google Scholar

∗ “Falcon (Silver) Street” Isaac Smith. Methodist Hymn Book (Appendix), No. 18; European Psalmist, No. 261.Google Scholar

∗ “Portsmouth,” J. F. Lampe. Houldsworth's Chestham's Psalmody No. 118.Google Scholar

∗ “Hensbnry” (Bennett's), R. Bennett. Methodist Hymn Book, No. 100. Houldsworth's Chestham's Psalmody, No. 63.Google Scholar

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† “Praise” Anton Radiger, see Bridge's Mathodist Hymn Book, Appendix. No. 35.Google Scholar

Note by the Secretary.—The tunes “Sarah” and “Job” (p., pp. 14 and 15) were by William Arnold, choirmaster at a Wesleyan Chapel at Portsmouth, and a shipwright at the dockyard. (See “Hymn Tunes and their Story,” by J T. Iightwood, pp. 237–238).Google Scholar