Tune Req: Fare Thee Well My Dearest Dear

Subject: Tune Req: Fare thee well my dearest dear
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 04 Jun 08 - 11:06 AM

I know the tune Shirley Collins uses on Amaranth, but it's been set in that rather plodding (three, and four, and) 4:4 they used to use a lot - OK to dance to, but lousy for singing unaccompanied. And I know the tune that the original broadside ballad was set to - a rather lugubrious number called Frankin's Fled Away - but it's not nearly as appealing as the Amaranth tune. Can anyone tell me (better still, abc me) the tune that was collected from Mrs Verrall in 1904?

(I guess I should just buy the book!)

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Fare thee well my dearest dear
From: Peace
Date: 04 Jun 08 - 11:36 AM

http://www.mudcat.org/midi/midifiles/fare%20thee%20well,%20my%20dearest%20dear.mid


The midi is from the Penguin Book of English Folksongs and is in the DT, fyi.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Fare thee well my dearest dear
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 04 Jun 08 - 11:42 AM

A brief score is contained, with the lyrics, in "Classic English Folk Songs," Vaughan Williams and A. L. Lloyd, revised by Malcolm Douglas, 2003, EFDSS, p. 21.
In his notes, Douglas says the song does not appear to have been found elsewhere in tradition, descended from a broadside (in Bodleian Coll.). He says Franklin is Fled Away is ancestral to Mrs Verall's melody.
(One would guess Mrs. Verall's source, or her source's source, was the broadside)

(Yes, buy the book!)

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Fare thee well my dearest dear
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 04 Jun 08 - 11:43 AM

Yes, you should just buy the book.

However, there is a midi file of Harriet Verrall's tune in a sub-directory here; it is an accurate transcription from RVW's notation, made by Ed Pellew back when we all thought that Penguin was unlikely ever to be republished. Locate the page devoted to the song via the search engine, and there you are. The Collins arrangement regularised the rhythm somewhat, particularly in the final bars, but wasn't, so far as I remember, greatly different.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Fare thee well my dearest dear
From: Peace
Date: 04 Jun 08 - 11:49 AM

Great to see you posting, Malcolm.