Review: Traditional Carols - Radio 2

Subject: Review: Traditional Carols - Radio 2
From: Folkiedave
Date: 21 Dec 09 - 11:47 AM

I have taken the opportunity - since the BBC have given the programmes a decent trailer on its news page - to set up a new thread devoted to these four programmes, which start on BBC Radio 2 tonight at 10.00 pm.

They ought to be really interesting. The link to the series is here.

Subject: RE: Review: Traditional Carols - Radio 2
From: EnglishFolkfan
Date: 21 Dec 09 - 12:29 PM

Both The Early Music Show one hour programmes on BBC Radio 3 this coming weekend are devoted to Christmas music and the Sunday 27th Dec 1pm GMT one is Catherine Bott tracing the origins of Christmas carols in pre-Christian Europe details here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00h3ycc

Just thought this might be an interesting follow up listen after the four half hour BBCR2 Keeping Tradition Alive at Christmas shows to be discussed in this thread.

BBCR2 programme listing here: http://is.gd/5w9WN

Looking forward to these very much and am wondering if all the nagging via various portals has opened one BBC ear to the value of English Folk ...... (I am a fan of all UK folk as well !!!)

Subject: RE: Review: Traditional Carols - Radio 2
From: GUEST,Derek Schofield
Date: 21 Dec 09 - 02:00 PM

Just to say ... 3 hours before the first broadcast ... I didn't enjoy it!!
Derek

Subject: RE: Review: Traditional Carols - Radio 2
From: Folkiedave
Date: 21 Dec 09 - 02:04 PM

Derek, with all due respect to you as a long-standing and valued member of the folk "fraternity" - I have more reason than most not to like it.

To be honest it lacked some Canadian folk singers, the Show of Hands Duo/Trio and sundry others too numerous to name. Goodness only knows what Lizzie will make of it.

And I haven't heard it yet either.

Subject: RE: Review: Traditional Carols - Radio 2
From: GUEST,Cornish Max
Date: 21 Dec 09 - 02:20 PM

Delighted to see the renewal of interest in (for want of a better word) "west gallery" music and west gallery type Christmas music in particular. As the Christmas season recedes it would be splendid if this interest widens a bit to include music of this "genre" as it was used throughout the year.

There are very many pieces that have come to light (some have never gone away!) in recent years, including many that we have sung in my own Washaway West Gallery Choir in Cornwall (and the Crediton West Gallery Quire), having been found through searches in local records offices etc. Some of it, like the Padstow and Sheffield tunes, has just kept going over the years, rooted in the local communities but evolving.

Much of this music was in use in the pre-Oxford Movement period in the CofE, with quires often singing (and playing) from galleries at the rear of churches. This would have sometimes overflowed into the nearby hostelry, particularly if there was a "village band". Instruments such as the serpent and ophicleide would often have been in use, with various stringed and wind instruments as may have been available. I know of one church in north Devon where a hole was cut into one of the benches, apparently to allow for [bass viol] bowing. The positioning of the quire at or near the rear of the churches would have required the parson to "face the music".

Reforms largely swept away the galleries and the "fugal tunes" favoured by the gallery quires, but some churches retain them, eg Dorset.

By the time of Thomas Hardy, the quires in Dorset were fast disappearing; Under the Greenwood Tree has some great references as do some of Hardy's poems relating to Melstock church (Stinsford) etc.

This is provincial music, but it has its moments. The progeny of carols arising from this West Gallery period and the links with earlier (sometimes much earlier and pre-Christian) music is truly fascinating. Perhaps someone will start up another link in due course on this slightly wider subject and its "folk roots". It will be very interesting to see the comments following the four Radio 2 programmes this week. Will you be hearing one or more of our many While Shepherds Watched tunes?

In the meanwhile, I do recommend the West Gallery Music Association web site as an excellent source of background material, including quire details, researchers etc.

Yours aye.

In the meanwhile.

Subject: RE: Review: Traditional Carols - Radio 2
From: Folkiedave
Date: 21 Dec 09 - 02:53 PM

Will you be hearing one or more of our many While Shepherds Watched tunes?

We more often than not sing Pentonville, Liverpool and Old Foster is a particular favourite. Well they certainly recorded some "While Shepherds" in Dungworth. But it is hard to know what will end up on the cutting room floor - so to speak. Then there will be a Chiming Bells, dor we open up with that. I doubt they will identify the tunes.

Subject: RE: Review: Traditional Carols - Radio 2
From: Folkiedave
Date: 21 Dec 09 - 02:55 PM

Sorry I pressed submit too soon there. Take that first sentence and put it after "cutting rooom floor."

Subject: RE: Review: Traditional Carols - Radio 2
From: mikesamwild
Date: 21 Dec 09 - 03:04 PM

I'm looking forward to it after the BBC 4 Music Hall the other night.

I enjoyed the Howard Goodall rerun on BBC4 last night with the bit from Worrall too.

Subject: RE: Review: Traditional Carols - Radio 2
From: GUEST, Georgina Boyes
Date: 21 Dec 09 - 03:10 PM

Michael Morpurgo is also including some of our recordings of carols in his Christmas Eve programme just before midnight on Christmas Eve too.

Subject: RE: Review: Traditional Carols - Radio 2
From: EnglishFolkfan
Date: 21 Dec 09 - 03:47 PM

Hi Georgina, thanks for that news,
Would that Michael Morpurgo programme be:

Christmas Meditation
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pdjxj

BBC have it listed as 15 mins past midnight on Christmas Day (=26dec09) can't find it on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve only seems to be the BBCR3 Late Junction 11.15pm Christmas Special with Carols from Sheffield and Ian McMillan with Christmas Classics 11pm on BBCR2.

Subject: RE: Review: Traditional Carols - Radio 2
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 21 Dec 09 - 05:03 PM

Thanks, FD - I may have missed what I'm about to listen to.

Subject: RE: Review: Traditional Carols - Radio 2
From: GUEST,Joe G
Date: 21 Dec 09 - 05:39 PM

Well I didn't like it - I loved it! Excellent programme - I hope the others are as good. I have a soft spot for the South Yorks carols as I have managed to get down on a couple of occasions and we also sing some of the carols on our annual pub crawl around the borderland twixt Bradford & Calderdale

Subject: RE: Review: Traditional Carols - Radio 2
From: EnglishFolkfan
Date: 21 Dec 09 - 07:10 PM

Really enjoyed listening tonight, these full voiced singing rousing chorused Carols are what make the Seasonal mood for me. Was lucky enough to live on the SW edge of Sheffield for a number of years and that's where I was introduced to the' Tradition'.

Three more to look forward to and then 2 hours of archive to keep and listen at leisure or share and enlighten others.

Good production on this first episode.

Subject: RE: Review: Traditional Carols - Radio 2
From: Folkiedave
Date: 22 Dec 09 - 12:01 PM

Tonight its the Plygain singers from Wales. They were at last year's Festival of Carols and damned good they were too.

And Gareth came to Dungworth by coincidence when they were recording there.

Subject: RE: Review: Traditional Carols - Radio 2
From: Cats
Date: 22 Dec 09 - 01:16 PM

Thought it was really good. So good that, now i'm not working, I will definitley come back and hear them again. meanwhile, I still have Padstow.

Subject: RE: Review: Traditional Carols - Radio 2
From: Folkiedave
Date: 22 Dec 09 - 02:30 PM

Wednesday night!! Same time slot!

Subject: RE: Review: Traditional Carols - Radio 2
From: My guru always said
Date: 23 Dec 09 - 06:25 AM

I listened again to Monday night's show & enjoyed it. I'm glad for any 'folk' air-time. Our friend Derek Droscher from Banbury Folk Club was interviewed which was the icing on the cake for us!!

Now I need to listen again to last night's show....

Subject: RE: Review: Traditional Carols - Radio 2
From: Wyrd Sister
Date: 23 Dec 09 - 08:04 AM

Padstow tonight!

Subject: RE: Review: Traditional Carols - Radio 2
From: GUEST,Henryp
Date: 23 Dec 09 - 08:55 AM

Padstow plus a visit to Whimple in the company of Jim Causley.

Also on BBC Radio 2 on Thursday 25 December 23:00 Brass and Carols

The Black Dyke Band, the Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus, singer Joe Stilgoe and Ian McMillan fill Sheffield's City Hall with a northern twist on the traditional sounds of Christmas.

The choir apparently performs a new medley of Sheffield carols.

Ian McMillan hosts and raises the roof with his 12 Days Of Yorkshire Christmas; the band and choir join forces for Gordon Langford's Christmas Fantasy, and a new arrangment by conductor Darius Battiwalla of O Holy Night; and Joe Stilgoe performs his own song Christmas Morning.

Subject: RE: Review: Traditional Carols - Radio 2
From: Folkiedave
Date: 23 Dec 09 - 12:18 PM

Yep, the "folkiedave family" are all over the airwaves - soon to be renamed I heard - this Xmas. (Didn't see the show but the the missus was there in the Chorus and reckons it was great). It has taken a long time to get them carols in the repertoire. Now we are up to four in the programme.

Subject: RE: Review: Traditional Carols - Radio 2
From: GUEST,Cornish Max
Date: 23 Dec 09 - 05:43 PM

That's more like it me ansums! Wonderful to hear those Cornish voices speaking and singing in 'Padsta'; hope that you all really enjoyed it as much as this Cornishman did. Music that has moved out beyond the church buildings but it surely loses nothing for that.

As described on the programme, this town now lives in a new world. The locals have mainly moved out of the centre up to the estates on the hill, but there is an amazing spirit here. Let psalmody be conserved, not preserved. There is a difference.

Proper job!

Subject: RE: Review: Traditional Carols - Radio 2
From: Cats
Date: 23 Dec 09 - 06:02 PM

Have to say a touch disapponited at tobnights programme. it was great to hear people talking about the carols but we only heard small snatches unlike the Wales and Sheffield programmes. It would have been good to have heard Rouse Rouse and Jesse and others in their entireity.

Subject: RE: Review: Traditional Carols - Radio 2
From: Folkiedave
Date: 23 Dec 09 - 06:18 PM

In fairness I was just thinking you had more singing than us!!

I suspect it might be about the same. All the programmes so far have been a fair bit about the script rather than the singing, and no complete songs as I remember in any of the three so far. Nevertheless they have had some high profile presenters - and it has been on Radio2 in a fairly high profile spot. It has been well made (IMHO).

And it certainly inspired me once again (!!) to come down and listen. I may even make it next year!

Subject: RE: Review: Traditional Carols - Radio 2
From: GUEST,Cornish Max
Date: 23 Dec 09 - 06:39 PM

Same view as yours formed here boy!