British Melodies Or Songs Of The People Classic Reprint

Author : H. E. D. Hammond
Publisher : Forgotten Books
ISBN 13 : 9780259927556
Total Pages : 64 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (275 download)

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Download or read book Folk-Songs of England, Vol. 1 written by H. E. D. Hammond and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2017-07-13 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Folk-Songs of England, Vol. 1: Folk-Songs From Dorset A large number of traditional songs have recently been recovered in England. Moreover, we believe them to be veritable folk-songs, i.a., songs which have been created or evolved by the common people. Taken in this sense, the folk-song must be definitely distinguished from the composition of the cultivated musician. It is the invention not of the individual, but of the community. Living only in the memories and on the lips of the singers, its existence has always been conditioned by its popularity, and by the accuracy with which it has reflected the ideals and taste of the common people. Consequently, the folk-song is stamped with the hall-mark of corporate approbation, and is the faithful expression in musical idiom of the qualities and characteristics of the nation to which it owes its origin. In its folk-music every nation possesses a musical heritage of priceless worth, which for many reasons it should cherish and preserve. The educational uses to which the folk-song may advantageously be put are many and obvious. It should be remembered, too, that folk-music is the germ of art-music. Style in all the arts - music, literature, poetry, painting, or sculpture - ultimately becomes national; indeed, it would be difficult to cite a single instance of a distinctive school of music in Europe which has not been founded upon a basis of folk-song. In the recovery, therefore, and dissemination of our own country's folk-music, the solution of the problem of a characteristic and national school of English music may possibly be found. In past centuries the collectors of English folk-songs were accustomed to edit and alter their folk-tunes before publishing them. In thus attempting to transmute folk-music into art-music they committed what most musicians would now agree was a fatal blunder. It is, therefore, scarcely necessary to state that the tunes contained in the present volume have not been editorially improved in any way, and that no melody will find a place in this series except in the precise form in which it was noted down by a competent musician from the lips of some folk-singer. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.