Lyr Add: The Morning is Charming / Hunting Song

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Morning is Charming / Hunting Song
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Feb 10 - 05:26 AM

On the topic of the anomaly of enjoying singing hunting songs while hating the sport itself, which was so cogently discussed above on this thread in July-Aug 05 by greg, malcolm, smiler, matthew... I remember Norma Waterson telling me during an overnight visit she & Martin made to Valerie & me in Cambridge in early 1975, to the effect that that was exactly her, & the Watersons', attitude. (A lot of the conversation was recorded with their agreement and published in Folk Review for March 1975, and I had thought that remark was included there; but on checking I find that it wasn't. Perhaps she said it while we were having dinner at the nearby Indian in Hills Road...)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Morning is Charming / Hunting Song
From: squeezeboxhp
Date: 21 Feb 10 - 04:06 AM

No Problem scanning it no problem with excercising hounds as it is now called( i was out Sat Morning) but hunting Hares on horseback seems odd as it is usually a beagle pack that hunts (excercises hounds) within the bounds of an unworkable law. what is more i care not if is non PC i enjoy my heritage and the songs that go with it

Subject: Lyr Add: THE MORNING IS CHARMING
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 20 Feb 10 - 11:49 PM

From The Choice Spirit's Chaplet: Or, a Poesy from Parnassus. compiled by George Alexander Stevens (Whitehaven: Hawes, Clarke, and Collins, 1771), page 270:

[I have boldfaced the words that are different from the version Storyteller posted above.]

SONG 209.

1. The morning is charming, all nature is gay,
Away, my brave boys, to your horses away;
For the prime of our pleasure, and questing the hare,
We have not so much as a moment to spare.

CHORUS.
Hark! the lively ton'd horn,
How melodious it sounds, how melodious it sounds
To the musical song, to the musical song of the merry mouth'd hounds.

2. In yon stubble field we shall find her below,
Soho! cries the huntsman; hark to him, soho!
See, see where she goes, and the hounds have a view,
Such harmony Handel himself never knew.

CHORUS.
Gates, hedges, and ditches, to us are no bounds.
But the world is our own while we follow the hounds.

3. Hold, hold, 'tis a double; hark, hey, Bowler, hey,
If a thousand gainsay it, a thousand shall lie;
His beauty surpassing, his truth has been try'd,
At the head of a pack an infallible guide.

CHORUS.
At his cry the wide welkin with thunder resounds,
The darling of hunters, the glory of hounds.

4. O'er highlands and lowlands, and woodlands we fly,
Our horses full speed, and our hounds in full cry;
So match'd in their mouths, and so even they run,
Like the trine of the spheres, and the race of the sun.

CHORUS.
Health, joy, and felicity, dance in the rounds,
And bless the gay circle of hunters and hounds.

5. The old hounds push forward, a very sure sign,
That the hare, tho' a stout one, begins to decline;
A chace of two hours or more she has led,
She's down—look about ye—they have her—she's dead.

CHORUS.
How glorious a death to be honour'd with sounds
Of horns, and a shout to the chorus of hounds.

6. Here's a health to all hunters and long be their lives,
May they never be cross'd by their sweet-hearts or wives;
May they rule their own passions, and ever at rest
As the most happy men, be they also the best.

CHORUS.
And free from the care which the many surrounds
Be happy at last, when they see no more hounds.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Morning is Charming / Hunting Song
From: BB
Date: 18 Jul 09 - 08:35 AM

That may well be why the Watersons' version differs from the one posted at the top of this thread, or why the one collected by Kidson did - not sure who changed it as I haven't looked up Kidson's version. Certainly, it was very singable as the Watersons did it.

Barbara

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Morning is Charming / Hunting Song
From: Matthew Edwards
Date: 18 Jul 09 - 05:55 AM

Hello BlueHornet. There are plenty of others using this forum, most of whom are probably real people. Have you got any particular interest in this song?
I must confess I haven't tried singing the song again since my last attempt four years ago - mainly because asking an audience to cope with a chorus that changes after each verse was a bit steep! I still haven't heard it sung by any of the Yorkshire or Lakeland groups although one Lakeland singer kindly sang me the frst verse over the phone. Perhaps its time to have another go.
Thanks for reviving this thread, BlueHornet, and welcome to the Mudcat forum.

Matthew

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Morning is Charming / Hunting Son
From: Matthew Edwards
Date: 11 Aug 05 - 07:32 PM

Well, I enjoyed a visit on Wednesday to the delightful Adlington Hall, where I was able to see for myself the manuscript of the song written by Handel himself. However I didn't have time to try to make a copy of the notation; and it seems that the song is so little regarded among Handelian musicologists that there is no published score for it.

Inspired by this I attempted to sing it later on in the Snug (to a tune which owed very little to Handel!), though the "chorus of hunters" was a little put off by the changes in the words every time. It does indeed work as a song, but I'd still like to hear how the Holme Valley Beagles or the Fell Packs treat it.

Our guest Smiler may rejoice in the ban on hunting, but gentlemen (and gentlewomen) may still, quite legally, take great delight in singing the hunting songs. Or perhaps Smiler believes that because he or she is virtuous 'there shall be no cakes and ale'.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Morning is Charming: Hunting Song
From: greg stephens
Date: 07 Aug 05 - 10:24 AM

I wish GUEST smiler would stop by again and explain which bits of the song he is attacking for their lack of scansion. It seems completely regular to me, the only variations being one or two syllables oick up notes at the beginning of lines
eg
"Away my brave boys"
as opposed to
"If a thousand gainsay it".
    This song is infinitely more regular than many justly more famous folksongs: I have nevr heard "Searching for lambs" or "The Wild Rover" criticised on grounds of irregularly scanned lines, for eample.
Which reinforces my impression that GUEST, smiler's objection to the scansion is completely specious: what he actually doesnt like is the so-called sport of hunting, which is another question altogether. However I will gladly admit I am wrong if he can povide examples of previous threads where he has criticised other folksongs for their scansion problems.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Morning is Charming: Hunting Song
From: Matthew Edwards
Date: 06 Aug 05 - 03:38 PM

The March 1747 edition of the Gentleman's Magazine printed a revised and corrected setting of this song in order "to oblige the Author". The music is attributed to Mr Ridley, Organist of Prestbury in Cheshire rather than the anonymous Gentleman of Wigan who was credited for the setting printed in the January 1747 edition. There are some slight changes to the words as well which can be seen on page 144 and page 145 of the online copy of the edition for 1747.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Morning is Charming: Hunting Song
From: GUEST,smiler
Date: 02 Aug 05 - 05:22 PM

Hi Malcolm

You might not want to second guess Handel, but speculation is always what its about. Its true in all science, in fact in any scholarly activity.

Yes I'm biased. Yes it doesn't scan.

Some songs should be naturally left to die. Like this one in my humble opinion.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Morning is Charming: Hunting Song
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 02 Aug 05 - 04:05 PM

It looks like a charming song for sing-alongs. Lots of vigor and gusto would do the trick.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Morning is Charming: Hunting Song
From: GUEST,Storyteller
Date: 02 Aug 05 - 03:44 PM

Thanks for the feedback and comments. The scansion issue is a red herring; any good traditional singer can handle irregular metres, and it is one of the delights of such singing to use free rhythms to explore different kinds of expression.

Having said that it isn't a masterpiece, nor is Handel's setting of it one of his better known compositions. It was indeed composed as a favour for a friend, which I find an attractive and generous gesture. There is a recent CD of Handel's 'Occasional Songs' on the Somm label which I haven't heard, but which would be interested to listen to. Above all I'd love to hear it sung by the Holme Valley singers or a Lakeland hunt group if it is still in thier repertoires.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Morning is Charming: Hunting Song
From: greg stephens
Date: 02 Aug 05 - 03:22 AM

Yo make this thread a little more complete, it would be nice to see the Waterson's tune and Handel's setting in musical notation. I know the Waterson's tune, but dont have the technology to display it here. And the blue clickie that leads us to the Adlington Hall site only leads to written information, not to the Handel MS/
GUEST storyteller: did you track down either of these tunes in notation, and could you possibly link to them? Thanks very much for leasing us to this very interesting story.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Morning is Charming: Hunting Song
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 01 Aug 05 - 07:17 PM

Greg knows his scansion, and so do I; I see no problem with it either; neither would I care to second-guess Handel. My personal opinions of blood-sports are irrelevant to any historical or structural analysis of a song made more than two centuries ago.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Morning is Charming: Hunting Song
From: GUEST,smiler
Date: 01 Aug 05 - 06:35 PM

I admit to not having heard the tune, however as a lyricist, the scansion in the first post was pretty bad, and would have stayed in my notebook, were I the composer.

My critiscism of this does not reflect on fox hunting, which I separately happen to disagree with.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Morning is Charming: Hunting Song
From: greg stephens
Date: 01 Aug 05 - 06:18 PM

In contrast to GUEST:smiler, I think this sings excellently, and the scansion seems just fine to me. The legality, or morality, of hunting surely doesnt affect the number of syllables in a line.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Morning is Charming: Hunting Song
From: R. Padgett
Date: 01 Aug 05 - 08:01 AM

The Sweet Rosy Morning tune is the tune used by Swan Arcade ~ Dave and Heather Brady and Jim Boyes (Jim now of Coope, Boyes and Simpson)

It really is a very singable join in song and certainly was as sung with the gusto and enthusiasm of Dave Brady a Uk institution!!

It does lend itself therefore to a happy sing song, even though singers have never been on any sort of hare or fox hunt

I make no comment about UK legislation!

Many other non hunting songs owe there currency to after hunt song gatherings as well as those specifically related to the chase
Ray

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Morning is Charming: Hunting Song
From: GUEST,smiler
Date: 31 Jul 05 - 11:21 PM

I hope the tune is better than the lyrics in the first post. If Handel wrote anything to this libretto, he'd have done it as a personal favour rather than following his muse.

It basically doesn't scan. It may have been tidied up since, though a eulogy to a banned bloodsport in its land of origin, doesn't exactly lend itself to a happy sing song

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Morning is Charming: Hunting Song
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 31 Jul 05 - 09:28 PM

Although Roud classifies them both under the same heading (probably due to overlaps in examples found in oral currency) The [Red/Sweet] Rosy Morn[ing] is a different song on much the same subject. A great many such were published in the later 18th and earlier 19th centuries, written to formulae and easily confused.

Alfred Williams, Folk-Songs of the Upper Thames, 1923, prints two examples of Rosy Morning, immediately followed by The Morning was Charming, which is a compacted mixture -about half-and-half- of "Rosy" and "Charming".

The DT file Bright Shining Morning is a form of Sweet Rosy Morning (Broadwood and Reynardson, Sussex Songs, 1889) which has been altered in small particulars by a series of folk club singers; it was originally learned from a record made by other revival performers who had arranged the Broadwood/Reynardson set and added a generic final verse to it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Morning is Charming: Hunting Song
From: masato sakurai
Date: 31 Jul 05 - 08:37 PM

From folktrax:

HARE HUNTING SONG, THE -- "The morning looks charming, all nature looks gay" - ROUD#580 - VOCAL ENCHANTRESS 1783 - WILLIAMS FSUT 1923 p58-9 #186 David Ball, Aston Oxfordsh "The Rosy Morn" ("The red rosy morning peeps over the hill")/ #236 James Falconer, Brize Norton, Oxfordsh (w/o) "The Morning was charming" - PURSLOW FD 1974 p64 Gardiner: Wm Randall, Hursley, Hampsh 1905 "On a bright and rosy morning" - MELBREAK Hunt SFP 1973 p73 var v/ch Cumberland 1971 - PALMER EBEC 1979 #125 pp208-10 Kidson: Mr Cropper, Westmorland Musical Festival 10/4/02 (from Mitchell Library, Glasgow) - ED&S 49:3 1987 p9 Melton Reynolds (w/o) "A hunting Song" -- David DODDS rec by PK 1979: 126 (tune by DD)

Subject: Lyr Add: MORNING LOOKS CHARMING (from Watersons)
From: GUEST,Storyteller
Date: 31 Jul 05 - 06:56 PM

Sorcha has already posted the lyrics to the Watersons' version of this song, The Morning Looks Charming, from their 1966 Topic LP A Yorkshire Garland in this thread Hunting the Hare, but as that is about a different song it may be as well to repeat it here.

The Morning Looks Charming

The morning looks charming all nature is gay
Come away me brave boys to your horses away
For the first of all pleasures is hunting the hare
You haven't as much as a moment to spare

Chorus (after each verse):
    So hark to the hounds the morn is fair
    Come brave boys a-hunting the hare

The lively tuned horn how melodious it sounds
To the musical notes of the merry mouthed hounds
Over yon stubble field you will find her below
See now cries the huntsman hark to him we'll go

See now where she goes with the hounds in full view
And a heavy and weary the nearer we drew
Oh the hedges and ditches to us are no bounds
For the world is our own while we follow the hounds

How glorious a death to be honoured with sounds
Of a horn and a shout and a chorus of hounds
Here's a health to all hunters and long be their lives
And may they be blessed in their sweethearts and wives.

From sleeve notes by A.L.Lloyd "This song came to Frank Kidson from the Howden district of Yorkshire. It does not seem to have spread far from its native home. Like nearly all our hunting songs, its words sound as if they were made by an educated amateur writer, rather than a folk poet. Following their sound instinct, the Watersons have re-phrased one or two of the more literary lines. The tune is related to the melody of the sea song Roll, Bullies, Roll (sometimes, in error, sung as �Row, Bullies, Row�)."

(Thanks to Reinhard Zierke's website for comprehensive information.)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Morning is Charming: Hunting Song
From: GUEST,Fullerton
Date: 31 Jul 05 - 03:38 PM

Fascinating

Thank you

Subject: Lyr Add: HUNTING SONG: 'The morning is charming...
From: GUEST,Storyteller
Date: 31 Jul 05 - 02:19 PM

After a little bit of research I've not only found an author for this rare but delightful song, but also discovered a fascinating connection to Handel. In so doing I have to disallow A.L.Loyd's claim in his notes to The Watersons LP A Yorkshire Garland that this is a Yorkshire song; it is in fact from Cheshire, though it probably survives better among the songs of the hunters in Yorkshire and Cumbria than in its native county.

The Gentleman's Magazine, Volume 17 January 1747 contains a 'Hunting Song, set to music by a gentleman of Wigan' on page 39 where the words and musical notation of A Hunting Song, by C.L. Esq. are given:-

A Hunting Song. By C.L. Esq;

The morning is charming, all nature is gay,
Away, my brave Boys, to your horses away:
For the prime of our pleasure and questing the hare,
We have not so much as a moment to spare.

Chorus
Hark the lively tuned horn, how melodious it sounds, how melodious it sounds,
To the musical notes, to the musical notes of the merry mouth'd hounds.

In yon stubble fields we shall find her below:
Soho! cries the huntsman! Hark to him; soho!
See, see where she goes, and the hounds have a view
Such harmony Handel himself never knew.

Cho. Gates, hedges and ditches to us are no bounds,
But the world is our own while we follow the hounds.

Hold, hold 'tis a double; hark hey! bowler hye!
If a thousand gainsay it, a thousand shall lye.
His beauty surpassing, his truth has been try'd,
At the head of the pack an infallible guide.

Cho. At his cry the wide welking with thunder resounds,
The darling of hunters, the glory of hounds.

O'er highlands and lowlands and woodlands we fly,
Our horses full speed, and our hounds in full cry,
So matched in their mouths and so even they run,
Like the turn of ye spheres and the race of the sun.

Cho. Health, joy and felicity dance in the rounds
And bless the gay circle of hunters and hounds.

The old hounds push forward, a very sure sign,
That the hare, tho' a stout one, begins to decline,
A chace of two hours or more she has led,
She's down, look about ye, they have her ware dead.

Cho. How glorious a death to be honour'd by [?] sounds,
Of horns, and a shout to the chorus of hounds.

Here's a health to all hunters and long be their lives
May they never be crost by their sweethearts or wives,
May they rule their own passions, and ever at rest,
As the most happy men, be they also the best.

Cho. And free from the care w[hich?] the many surrounds
See heav'n at last - when they see no more hounds.

Notes
The author,C.L., is Charles Legh (1697-1781) of Adlington Hall, near Macclesfield, Cheshire, while the music is by Mr Ridley the organist at Prestbury. The reference to Handel in the second verse is probably a family in-joke as Charles' elder sister, Elizabeth, had been a pupil of Handel, and the composer was a close friend of the family and almost certainly visited Adlington Hall on his way to Dublin for the first performance of the Messiah. More to the point Handel wrote a new musical setting to the song in 1751 (HWV 226), and the manuscript in his own handwriting is still in the possession of the family at Adlington Hall today.(Information from Handel at Adlington Hall.)

The song proved popular, and was reprinted in song collections such as Amaryllis, 1760, 'A choice collection of Favourite Hunting Songs', 1770 and 'The Vocal Enchantress', 1783.

Frank Kidson collected a version in 1902 from Mr Cropper at the Westmorland Musical Festival, which Roy Palmer printed in English Country Songbook, 1979.

The Holme Valley Beagles have included the song in their books of Hunters' Songs in successive editions since 1887.

The song also appears in the Songs of the Fell Packs published by the Melbreak Hunt in 1971.