The Alehouse Sessions

Subject: The Alehouse Sessions
From: GUEST,Tug the Cox
Date: 06 Jun 23 - 09:21 AM

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001lcvt
Well worth watching

Subject: RE: The Alehouse Sessions
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 06 Jun 23 - 03:37 PM

Good fun if you want to watch a bunch of hooray Henrys with no idea what folk music existed in the 17th century. I couldn't fault their enthusiasm and musicianship but authenticity flies out of the window.

Subject: RE: The Alehouse Sessions
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Jun 23 - 04:40 PM

There was a discussion about this already, maybe about 2 months ago. Steve Gardham sums it up perfectly.

Subject: RE: The Alehouse Sessions
From: GUEST,patriot
Date: 07 Jun 23 - 04:56 AM

a promising title but just demonstrates how little the BBC understands about a musical movement with a huge number of followers.


Associating the music with the 'alehouse' is rather anachronistic when traditional 'alehouses' are closing by the hundred and the remainder are now a heaving mass of punters deafened by rock music, screaming football commentaries waving their QR codes at the barman or would-be gourmets stuffing themselves with pretentious and expensive nosh.

No thanks

Subject: RE: The Alehouse Sessions
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Jun 23 - 04:46 PM

Couldn't find an earlier thread. Steve, how do YOU know what existed in the 17th century, patriot, the programme is about a ten year period, under Cromwell,
when the theatres were closed and music did in fact find a home in the alehouses

Subject: RE: The Alehouse Sessions
From: GUEST,patriot
Date: 08 Jun 23 - 04:42 AM

Guest, my reference was to the use of 'alehouse' as a hanger for people to think these are centres of music 'sessions'

There certainly were no 'sessions' in the 17th century- the session (or even the ghastly 'seisun') is a JAZZ term adopted by folkies in the 60s.' many of whom are still living in the 17th century.
Will the programme about music under Cromwell be sold to Ireland?- can't see it being popular in Drogheda

Subject: RE: The Alehouse Sessions
From: GUEST,Lang Johnnie More
Date: 08 Jun 23 - 04:47 AM

Previous discussion here :
https://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=172022&messages=18

Subject: RE: The Alehouse Sessions
From: GUEST,Lang Johnnie More
Date: 08 Jun 23 - 04:49 AM

Can't seem to make link work. Thread title was :"BBC TV This Week 2023".

Subject: RE: The Alehouse Sessions
From: GUEST,Howard Jones
Date: 08 Jun 23 - 06:40 AM

Playford gets claimed by both the Early Music/Classical and folk worlds, who have very different ideas about interpretation. This seems to be an attempt to bring elements of both, although I suspect the musicians' roots are mainly in the former. It appears to have been a TV version of a touring show and is perhaps aimed more at a classical or general audience. I can think of a number of UK performers of Playford who I would rather have watched.

What I found most disappointing was that much of the material they performed wasn't from the Playford era, when there are so many superb tunes in Playford that a programme could easily have been built around.

It's still on iPlayer but I'm not rushing to watch it again.

Subject: RE: The Alehouse Sessions
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 08 Jun 23 - 06:33 PM

I watched some of one and was appalled by the triteness of it.

The one I watch seemed to be loaded with Scandinavians.

Hardly worth a mention here.

Subject: RE: The Alehouse Sessions
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 09 Jun 23 - 01:34 PM

We watched it. There's a time and a place for deep scholarship and accurate historical reenactments; but there's also a time and a place for *fun*. To me, it had enough of the scholarship to satisfy my inner pedant, but it was bags of fun, and all told very reminiscent of some of the best early-music performances I've been to. I'd never heard Leaving Of Liverpool done as a slow-paced song of departure* before: surprisingly moving. (I tried that a few days later at a live session, and it's very effective.)

My take: Back in the Commonwealth, the musicians used material which was familiar then to their audiences. In the programme in question, the musicians recreated the atmosphere of *then* for today's audience, by using songs and tunes which are familiar *now*. Possibly anachronistic, but much fun was had by all, and who knows which of the audience might have thereby been drawn into the Real Thing :-) ?

€0.02 from the demented keyboard of:

                           MaJoC

* cf The Parting Glass, which I was Told should be sung as if tiptoeing out of the bar. I'd just been guilty of taking it at full-pelt chanty speed, as if being sung over one's shoulder while being frogmarched out of the pub by the bouncer.

Subject: RE: The Alehouse Sessions
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 09 Jun 23 - 08:26 PM

MaJoC

Que!