The other 'hat' I wear is theatre critic; and my main outlet these days is an online journal of Shakespeare studies. The point is that there are infinite ways that the plays can be interpreted and staged: one know the play before the start, and the critic's job with any production is to assess the validity of the interpretation & the success with which it has been realised, in the staging and acting.

Similarly, surely, a folksong, because of the fact of its multiplicity of version and possible interpretation, can be successfully performed in many different ways, from the pure unaccompanied source, to the addition of accompaniments with inappropriate foreign instruments [guitar as well as piano ~~ see the thread we had a while back on the guitar as an accompanying instrument], to the formal classical-style concert arrangement. Which way most appeals to any listener is a matter of personal choice, as none is definitive, and it is arguable that only the original source is 'authentic'.

It is surely not a moral fault to prefer Peter Pears & Benjamin Britten's renderings to those of Carthy or Bellamy or Tabor or Jones or MacColl, tho it may not be one's own preference?



~Michael~