G'day GUEST of 19 Sep 06 - 10:00 AM,

Thanks for the text of Paul Oestreicher's excellent eulogy for Sydney Carter!

I hope that your contribution to this thread wasn't triggered by misreading my postings as suggesting Sydney had, in some way, "misappropriated" the tune to which he set his wonderful words in creating the song Lord of the Dance. He always, in performance and in print, made it clear that the tune was from the Shaker Hymn 'Tis a Gift to be Simple ... and was his latter-day publishers and holders of the copyrights that attempted to make unearned profits from the tune that was never his.

I think their view of things must be represented by their publishing style ... I bought the fifth of his songbook series - the only one set and published by Stainer and Bell. Many (particularly older) readers had some trouble with Galliard's setting the lyrics in (~) 7-point sans serif ... but S & B (as I prefer to style them ...) set the fifth book's lyrics in (~) 5-point sans serif! When I showed one song to my wife, I said "What do you think of the legibility of these words?" Patricia replied: "What words?"

Obviously publishing by, and for, the extremely short-sighted!

Regards,

Bob