Abridged Bronson

Subject: Abridged Bronson
From: RTim
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 04:04 PM

I was reading somewhere lately where a single copy of one of the Bronson Volumes was for sale at $200.
I only possess a copy of the Abridged paperback version, and I have been very happy with it.
ie. The Singing Tradition of Child's Popular Ballads, Princeton 1976.
My question is - how does it stack up to the full 6 volume set?

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: Abridged Bronson
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 04:18 PM

Bronson is 4 volumes and it's vol 2 up for grabs on ebay currently at $200. The full set has just about every known (by the 50s) version of each ballad with a tune (no text-only versions). Sets and even odd vols are becoming very scarce. Having not seen the abridged version I'd guess it only has a selection, perhaps one version per ballad, or perhaps one version each representing each sub-division Bronson used. He split up the extant tunes for each ballad into family groups where this was warranted.

Subject: RE: Abridged Bronson
From: Surreysinger
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 04:43 PM

I would seem to have the same edition as you Tim - bought it as a present for my sister in the 70's, and got it back as a present from her a couple of years ago ... very gratefully received!!

Subject: RE: Abridged Bronson
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 06:34 PM

Tim-
It's certainly not as good as the 4-volume set. And it's a helluva lot better than nothing!

Subject: RE: Abridged Bronson
From: RTim
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 07:52 PM

Well $12.50 for one volume verses $200 for a quarter of the opus,
That's some difference!!!

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: Abridged Bronson
From: Surreysinger
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 07:55 PM

Don't think I could afford it!!!

Subject: RE: Abridged Bronson
From: Folkiedave
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 08:48 PM

$200 for a volume is a reasonable price I am afraid to say.

It looks a lot worse because the £/$ is not so good at the moment. I have sold five full sets (!!) and none went into five figures.

Three of those were immaculate (covers etc.) Think in terms of £200.00 per volume for a full set.

Sorry.

Subject: RE: Abridged Bronson
From: Anglo
Date: 07 Mar 09 - 03:24 AM

The last full set I saw available was being offered at about $2000, two or three years ago. Mine is not for sale. "Dust covers and all"? Interestingly enough (well, to me, anyway) I ordered my later volume copies new, and some had dust covers and some just didn't.

Tim, as far as I'm concerned, the one volume reduction (which I also have) is an excellent abridgement and does a fine job of selecting prime examples of the ballads.

Subject: RE: Abridged Bronson
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 07 Mar 09 - 05:54 PM

I didn't state what current values were because I didn't want to push prices up for those who haven't got them, but since Dave has given his expert pronouncement...My first vol (2) was £20 in a London bookshop about 20 years ago, then Malcolm very kindly did me a photocopy of vol 3 (Imagine how much space that takes up). Dave sold me a copy of vol 1 for I think about £100 some time ago, and then I got the last volume, Hamish Henderson's personal copy for £150 from Mike Yates. Vol 4 by the way is by far the scarcest.

I did have a full pristine set in my hands a year ago but couldn't afford to keep it. Dave sold it on for me.

Subject: RE: Abridged Bronson
From: Peter Shepheard
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 10:59 AM

The Singing Tradition - that is, Bertrand H Bronson's The Singing Tradition of Child's Popular Ballads, is a single-volume, abridged edition of Bronson's four volume The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads.

At the time volumes 1 and 2 of Bronson's Traditional Tunes were published in 1958 and 1962, Professor Bronson had not yet gained access to the massive archive of ballads collected from recent Scottish tradition and held in the School of Scottish Studies in Edinburgh. However, after visiting Scotland in 1964, Bronson was able to include many ballad variants from the School's archive in the third and fourth volumes - much of it from the collecting work of Hamish Henderson and Francis Collinson. From the Scottish perspective this makes these latter volumes particularly important. Bronson also gained access to many later ballad variants from English and North American collectors/ collections appropriate to the first two volumes. Many of these later variants were included in the addendum to volume four when it was published in 1972.

To create his condensed single volume edition in 1976 - The Singing Tradition of Child's Popular Ballads, Bronson selected those tunes and texts which had the strongest representation in the oral tradition, excluding those from the original collection which only existed in print, but including many of the ballad variants that had been unavailable to him at the time he was putting together volumes 1 and 2 of his Traditional Tunes. The condensed volume has an excellent new introduction where Bronson analyses the essential unity of a ballad text and tune and he shows how ballad tunes have evolved to produce tune families. His introduction to the modal structure of tunes in the Anglo-American tradition is essential reading for singers and students of the ballad tradition.

Dick Greenhaus of Camsco Music was the driving force behind the Bronson reprint - obtaining permission from the original publishers Princeton University Press and then working with Loomis House Press to arrange the republishing. Loomis in the United States had already set about republishing Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads and we at Springthyme in Scotland arranged to distribute the Loomis Child volumes through our website. The four volume set of Bronson's Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads became available earlier this year and now the condensed Singing Tradition in November 2009 is an alternative for those without the funds or the bookshelf space for the full set.

All these are available from Springthyme - including a special bargain price on the four volume set of Bronson with a FREE CD version of the complete four volumes (compliments of Camsco Music) for those purchasing the full four volumes set of Bronson's Traditional Tunes.

Have a look at:
Bronson: The Singing Tradition of Child's Popular Ballads
More about Bronson's 'Traditional Tunes' & 'Singing Tradition'

For years it has been almost impossible to get the full set of Bronson (and the cost could be well over £1000) and the condensed edition has been near £100 (paperback) and up to £400 for the hardback. Congratulations to Dick at Camsco!

Pete Shepheard
Springthyme

Subject: RE: Abridged Bronson
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 06:04 PM

Thanks Peter. I'll just add that the four volume set costs $40 per volume for softcover and $50 per for hardcover--In the UK. it sells for 23.75 and $28.50 GBPounds respectively. The single-volume "Singing Tradition" is priced the same (but only consists of the one volume, of course.

We feel that every Child should have a companion.

Subject: RE: Abridged Bronson
From: GUEST,Bryan Sutton
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 10:28 AM

Loomis House Press have recently issued a reprint of The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads at $39 us papaerback and $49 us hard cover - plus postage. They are slightly reduced in size from the originals but I find that no problem myself. I had purchase a used copy of volume 2 for about $170 can so to pick up the other three for $190 cananian was not a problem. (Personally I felt that one volume of the full set was better than getting the Singing Tradition which didnt seem to give me much choice of tune. It should always be remembered that Bronsons interest was in the tunes and that great versions of the words exist elsewhere.)
For some reason the price of The Singing Tradition has dropped considerably recently, I see a paperback copy for less that $30 us. Though I wonder if the introduction, which is better than that in The Traditional Tunes is worth that.