Tune Req: Jolly Pinder of Wakefield

Subject: Tune Req: Jolly Pinder of Wakefield
From: GUEST,Dave
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 05:23 PM

Does anyone know the name of the tune that goes with this ballad? I have it in sheet music form (although I don't read music)!

Incidentally, there is an older version than the lyrics listed in this database, which only came to into general circulation with the publication of the 'Forresters' Manuscript in 1993 - this is possibly from 1557, much older than the Child version.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Jolly Pinder of Wakefield
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 06:39 PM

Chappell (PMOT) in his commentary on Robin Hood and The Pindar of Wakefield says that the tune is sometimes called Wakefield on a Green and gives 3 sources for the tune, 2 from lute mss and 1 from virginal ms. He discounts the 2 lute ones as extemporisations on ground bass and gives his tune extracted from the "base and inner parts" of the virginal tune.


Mick

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Jolly Pinder of Wakefield
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 09:07 PM

Stephen Knight, editor of the Forresters MS, makes no real claim for the two Pinder of Wakefield texts that would place them as early as 1557. Although a ballad of that name was entered in the Stationers Register in 1557-8, it does not survive in print; both of the Forresters examples are likely early-to-mid 17th century, though Knight does suggest that the second may be, more or less, the 16th century text. Possible, but conjectural only.

I had thought that the tune Wakefilde on a green had been posted here (perhaps even by me) but I seem to be mistaken.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Jolly Pinder of Wakefield
From: GUEST,Dave Crutcher (orig. poster)
Date: 15 Nov 05 - 10:25 AM

Thanks for info on this tune. Yes, I agree the dating of Forresters 10B is highly conjectural, but it does seem to me to pre-date the play of 'George a Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield'(c.1592), particularly in the phrasing of stanza 2 which the play appears to self-consciously quote. These lines are also in Child 124, however.

I have recently edited the play of 'George a Green' for an Masters dissertation, any much of the literary scholarship on the play is confused as to sources/derivations. Some previous editors have not appreciated, for instance, that there are not 1 but 2 early prose works on the theme, and that these probably post-date the play.

Can't trace 'Wakefild on a green'; Knight & Ohlgren give music for a tune to 'Pinder' on p.472 of 'Robin Hood & Other Outlaw Tales' - I wonder if this is the same tune?

Any other thoughts/information much appreciated.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Jolly Pinder of Wakefield
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 15 Nov 05 - 11:26 AM

Here's the tune from Chappell. I've modified a few note values slightly to fit the words he gives (when he assigns more than one word to a note).

On the tune he says: "Two copies can be found, under that name, among the lute manuscripts (said to be Dowland's) in the Public Library, Cambridge (D. d. ii. 11, and D. d. iii. 18); a third is contained in a manuscript volume of virginal music of the time of Queen Elizabeth, no in the possession of Dr. Rimbault...The tune,in this instance, is to be found in the base <of the virginal music - MCP>, and in the inner part& and I am indebted to Dr. Rimbault for extracting it. Such versions are never very satisfactory, but must be accepted when no better are to be had".


There is also a footnote to The Bailiff's Daughter of Islington in Simpson's The British Broadside Ballad and its Music which I have trouble deciphering the exact meaning of, so I'll give it in full here:

"E.F.Rimbault, in Gutch's Robin Hode, 1847, II, 434, reprinted as the tune of "The Jolly Pindar of Wakefield" the "Baily's Daughter" music from The Jovial Crew. Rimbault did not mention the ballad opera but named as the source of his tune "an old MS in lute tablature, formerly in the collection of the Rev. Mr. Gosling, of Canterbury." What he called "another copy of this tune" in Cambridge University MS Dd.3.18 is evidently "Wakefilde on a green," fol.11v, an entirely different air. It's title, coming from the burden of "The Jolly Pinder," probably led Rimbault to an association which the music does not justify."

(I can't decide if Simpson is saying that the tune was just wrongly associated with The Bailiff's Daughter, or that Rimbault incorrectly assumed that Dd.3.18 is for The Jolly Pinder when it's not!).

Hope this is of use.
Mick

---

X: 1
T:Robin Hood And The Pindar of Wakefield
M:6/8
L:1/8
SChappell: Popular Music of the Olden Time Vol II
K:DDor
A|d2 d d2 d|cdB A2 d|d2 d d>cB|A3-A2
w:In Wakefield there lives a jol-ly Pin-der, In Wake-field all on a green_
d|d2 d d>cB|A3-A2|
w:In Wake-field all on a green_
A|d2 d d2 d|cdB A2 d|d2 d d>cB|A3-A2
w:There's neither Knight nor Squire, says the Pin-der, Nor Baron that is_ so bold_
d|d2 d d>cB|A3-A2|
w:Nor Baron that is_ so bold
A|A>AA A>AA|AAB c2 G/G/|A2 A G>FE| D3-D2
w:Dare make a tres-pass to the town of Wake-field, But his pledge goes to the Pin-fold_,
G|A2 A G>FE|D3-D2||
w:His pledge goes to the Pin-fold_

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Jolly Pinder of Wakefield
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 15 Nov 05 - 01:26 PM

My understanding of Simpson's comment is that Rimbault incorrectly associated the Baily's Daughter tune with The Jolly Pinder, and that Chappell followed him in this. The final two sentences are ambiguous, as you say; but I take them to mean that Rimbault was wrong to think Wakefilde related to Baily, and that, while the former may properly be associated with The Jolly Pinder, the latter (because unrelated) is not.

Rather convoluted, and of course it may also mean that neither tune really belongs. The MS copy is apparently a duet part, and old lute tablature isn't easy to decipher from what I've been told, which might account for any confusion Rimbault may have fallen into.

Robin Hood & Other Outlaw Tales will undoubtedly give a source reference for the Pinder tune included, but I don't have access to that particular book.

Wakefilde on a green (Cambridge MS Dd.3.18) is ascribed to John Johnson, and another copy appears in the Marsh lute MS, (Dublin MS Z3.2.13). The latter has been recorded fairly recently; obviously I don't know how close the two copies are to each other.

Details of the MSS are in Julia Craig-McFeely's  English Lute Manuscripts and Scribes 1530-1630.

Tablature interpreted from the Marsh copy can be found in various formats, including midi, at  Sarge Gerbode's Lute Page:

http://web.gerbode.net/ft2/composers/Lute_ensemble/JJohnson/wakefield_on_a_green/.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Jolly Pinder of Wakefield
From: GUEST,Dave Crutcher
Date: 16 Nov 05 - 09:09 AM

Thanks again for the excellent & copious information on this tune. Will set my musical sister to work on it!

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Jolly Pinder of Wakefield
From: Mrs.Duck
Date: 19 Jun 06 - 02:22 PM

Curiously I was asked only last week if I knew the tune to this on a school trip to Clarke Hall, Pinderfields Wakefield. They organise history days for children who live a day in the life of a 17th century servant. I have forwarded info to them so hopefully it will get used on 'home ground'

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Jolly Pinder of Wakefield
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jun 06 - 05:40 PM

The Pindar of Wakefield was/is a pub in Greys Inn Road, Kings Cross, London and was one of the earliest venues for MacColl's Singers Club.
Not a lot of people know that - or maybe they do!
Jim Carroll