On 15 Jul 2011, at 09:48, Matt Seattle wrote: > I am fascinated by the 'soup' that accompanies traditional tunes, the > lore which has its own reality but is different from 'facts'. It is not > inconceivable that Shield composed the Morpeth Rant; I have seen no > evidence that convinces me he did; and does it matter?
Matt's question raises the interesting issue of how tunes by known composers become 'traditional tunes' (what does that really mean?) and also how they evolve and are over-composed by subsequent players and editors. One good example of this is the Hesleyside Reel by Thomas J. Elliott of Hexham, acknowledged and thanked in the 1936 edition of the NPS Tunebook, but regarded now as thoroughly traditional. Players, as well as the editor of the most recent edition, have sensibly ignored Elliot's dotted 2nd and third notes of the first full bar and where the passage repeats. As he has it, it's awkward to play and adds nothing to the tune. Another 'traditional' tune, J.L Dunk's Whin Shields on the Wall was unplayable nonsense when given to the NPS in a literate-looking but impossible manuscript. Someone, probably the editor Gilbert Askew has bashed it into the excellent Whinshield's Hornpipe. Few people would now play Miss Forbes' Farewell to Banff at the speed Isaac Cooper intended it, as a slow song. At the usual present speed, it would seem that she couldn't get away fast enough. I certainly prefer it with some energetic pace. Finally, there is an odd, tenuous and completely inconsequential connection between Shield and Morpeth. Shield is buried in Westminster Abbey, adjacent to Muzio Clementi, the first really significant composer for the piano and subsequent piano manufacturer. Clementi was 'discovered' in Rome and brought to England by an aristocrat, Peter Beckford who was doing the young rich toff's customary GrandTour. Beckford was, for a while, MP for Morpeth. Francis To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
