Turtle Dove Pilgrimage

Subject: RE: Turtle Dove Pilgrimage
From: Jos
Date: 18 Mar 19 - 05:58 PM

As jim bainbridge pointed out, they produced a fine example of dialogue, scenery and people in the 'Ramblings' programme with Clare Balding.

Subject: RE: Turtle Dove Pilgrimage
From: leeneia
Date: 18 Mar 19 - 04:49 PM

Take it easy on the poor BBC producers. They had to have dialogue, scenery and people in order to make a more interesting program.

It's a beautiful old melody, and I'm transcribing the song off a YouTube video which shows the sheet music. For some reason Williams did it in the key with five flats. He doesn't make it easy.

Subject: RE: Turtle Dove Pilgrimage
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 18 Mar 19 - 12:54 PM

Listen Again to The Turtle Dove Pilgrimage

Subject: RE: Turtle Dove Pilgrimage
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 16 Mar 19 - 06:37 PM

They could branch out into murder mystery weekends and investigate who shot Cock Robin.

Subject: RE: Turtle Dove Pilgrimage
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 16 Mar 19 - 06:15 PM

What could they do for their swan song?

Of course, Polly Vaughan.

Subject: RE: Turtle Dove Pilgrimage
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 16 Mar 19 - 05:18 PM

They could kill one of their number and sing The Three Ravens as a group of ravens fly down and peck his eyes out!

Subject: RE: Turtle Dove Pilgrimage
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 16 Mar 19 - 09:15 AM

Then there's Pretty Flamingo - though that might be more appropriate for Ian Anderson (not the folky one).

Subject: RE: Turtle Dove Pilgrimage
From: Jos
Date: 16 Mar 19 - 06:17 AM

I believe he has already 'done' singing with nightingales.

Maybe he should take his pilgrims to somewhere where larks might be singing - there are several songs about larks, and he could play them a recording of Vaughan Williams's 'Lark Ascending'.

And he does seem to like the idea of communing with his chosen birds, so perhaps he could go to a free range chicken farm and crouch in the hen house singing 'Ain't Nobody Here but Us Chickens'.

Subject: RE: Turtle Dove Pilgrimage
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 15 Mar 19 - 05:50 PM

Ripe for a spoof!

The song is a lover's lament, sod all to do with birds.

What's the next trip, Following a flock of geese in a helicopter singing The Wild Goose Chanty?

Subject: RE: Turtle Dove Pilgrimage
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 15 Mar 19 - 04:19 PM

I was in my garden digging the ground ready for tatties when this came on the radio.
   I can unreservedly say that I have never heard such pretentious and worthy New Age crap on the radio for a long time.

Sam Lee, the ;international expert' did a programme recently about collecting from Irish travellers which was as condescending and sickening as I've heard, but this was worse.
My hands were mucky or I'd have switched it off.
The sound of his hushed 'David Attenborough' tones and the daft idea of playing back the old recording to the turtle doves was pure claptrap, and made me squirm in discomfort.

The concept of rambling/walking is a strange one, but Clare Balding's 'Ramblings' later in the door was an object lesson in how to do it properly!

Subject: RE: Turtle Dove Pilgrimage
From: Brian Peters
Date: 15 Mar 19 - 08:27 AM

Just for interest, Nic Jones' 'Ten Thousand Miles' is from Cecil Sharp's Appalachian collection, from Rosie Hensley, Carmen NC, 1916. I'm not sure that A. L. Lloyd had much to do with it - I believe Nic scoured the sources hmself.

Subject: RE: Turtle Dove Pilgrimage
From: Jos
Date: 15 Mar 19 - 07:29 AM

Well, we heard the pilgrims singing quite a lot, but always the same song. I thought they sounded rather tired and bored - maybe they would have liked to sing something else now and then for a change.
When they reached the turtles' home we heard the presenter talking in hushed whispers, so as not to scare the doves away. Then we heard turtle doves cooing, followed by the pilgrims singing and the doves cooing at the same time - so they hadn't been scared away after all.
(Unless, of course, the singers and the doves were recorded separately and then put together later in the studio ... but, maybe I am being too cynical.)

Subject: RE: Turtle Dove Pilgrimage
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 14 Mar 19 - 06:30 PM

I was being facetious. The song originated c1686 in London.
Titled 'The Two Constant Lovers, or, The Prentice obtain'd his Master's Daughter by True Love and Loyalty'. Rewritten shortly after as 'The Unkind Parents; or, The languishing Lamentation of Two Loyal Lovers.'

Subject: RE: Turtle Dove Pilgrimage
From: Jos
Date: 14 Mar 19 - 03:28 AM

As I understand it, henryp is talking about Vaughan Williams "extracting the song from Sussex ...", and Sam Lee, William Parsons and 11 pilgrims returning it.
What the turtle doves will think about it we may never know, though if they take one look at the well-meaning pilgrims and fly away it may give us some idea.

Subject: RE: Turtle Dove Pilgrimage
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 13 Mar 19 - 06:15 PM

>>>>extracting the song from Sussex and exporting it to the concert halls of London.<<<< So taking it back to its origins then.

Subject: RE: Turtle Dove Pilgrimage
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 13 Mar 19 - 12:20 PM

Coope Boyes and Simpson sing Ten Thousand Miles for Radcliffe and Maconie live on BBC Radio 2. Inspired by the performance of Nic Jones.

Ten Thousand Miles

Subject: Turtle Dove Pilgrimage
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 13 Mar 19 - 11:42 AM

BBC Radio 4 11.30am Thursday 14 March 2019
The Turtle Dove Pilgrimage

Folk singer Sam Lee, along with William Parsons of the British Pilgrimage Trust, leads eleven pilgrims on a journey across Sussex tracing the origins of the iconic folk song The Turtle Dove.

Over a hundred years ago, the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams travelled through Rusper, Sussex, collecting the stories and songs of the locals he encountered. He stopped at the Plough Inn, where he set up his Edwardian recording equipment to capture the songs of the pub’s landlord, whose crackled voice and haunting melodies can still be heard today. Vaughan Williams transformed one of the humble folk songs, The Turtle Dove, into a choral hit – extracting the song from Sussex and exporting it to the concert halls of London.

This Pilgrimage seeks to return the song to the land from which it was taken. Moving through woods, churchyards and village halls, the pilgrims sing as they progress toward the Knepp rewilding estate, where they hope to sing The Turtle Dove to the last remaining colony of turtle doves in Sussex. Along the way, the pilgrims muse on the meaning of pilgrimage in a secular age and the contemporary relevance of this ancient song.

Presenter: Sam Lee Producer: Claire Crofton A TBI production for BBC Radio 4

From Mainly Norfolk; The Turtle Dove/Ten Thousand Miles

Three versions of Turtle Dove are also on the 1986 LP An Hour with Cecil Sharp and Ashley Hutchings, a cylinder recording of Mr Pendfold, landlord of the “Plough Inn”, Rusper, Sussex, by Ralph Vaughan Williams; a version sung by Martin Carthy; and a guitar-only version played by Martin Carthy, Richard Thompson and Dave Whetstone.

Nic Jones learned Ten Thousand Miles from A.L. Lloyd and sang it in 1977 on his third album, The Noah's Ark Trap.