Lyr/Chords: Farewell, Ye Green Fields and Groves

01 Jun 02 - 04:43 PM (#721237)
Subject: FAREWELL, YE GREEN FIELDS AND GROVES
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)

Farewell, Ye Green Fields and Groves. Contained in Madden collected ballads, Cambridge. Tune used by several composers. Several lyric rewrites? (Green Fields of America, etc.).

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01 Jun 02 - 05:31 PM (#721252)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: FAREWELL, YE GREEN FIELDS AND GROV
From: Sorcha

Not sure what you are asking for.......lyrics? chords? tune?

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01 Jun 02 - 07:56 PM (#721309)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: FAREWELL, YE GREEN FIELDS AND GROVES
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)

Lyrics, tune, chords- Anything that can be found, Sorcha.

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01 Jun 02 - 08:06 PM (#721314)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: FAREWELL, YE GREEN FIELDS AND GROVES
From: masato sakurai

The tune De Fleury is "adapted from a secular song 'Farewell, ye green fields and groves' and used for John Newton's song 'How tasteless and tedious the hours.'" (From HERE).

~Masato

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01 Jun 02 - 08:41 PM (#721327)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: FAREWELL, YE GREEN FIELDS AND GROVES
From: Sorcha

And there is a Noteworthy Composer score at the above site. 4 part harmony.

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01 Jun 02 - 08:42 PM (#721328)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: FAREWELL, YE GREEN FIELDS AND GROVES
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)

The entry on De Fleury is in error, as noted in the website. Lewis Edson took the tune from part of Bach Cantata 212. The midi of that tune is on Cyberhymnal: How Tedious
"How tedious...." is discussed in a current thread.
I believe that Johann Sebastian Bach used the English-Irish melody for "Farewell, ye..." as a basis for one part of the Cantata (sometimes called the Peasant Cantata).
Johann Christian Bach arranged a number of Scottish, Irish and English songs, one being "Farewell, Ye Green Fields." This may be the same one J. S. used.

Uncle Jaque and I are trying to find the old secular song. It was in Madden Collected Ballads, but we don't have access to that. We are hoping some of our UK Mudcats know the old song.

It also may be the antecedent of "Green Fields of America," etc. etc. but until it is found, much posted here is guesswork!!

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01 Jun 02 - 09:19 PM (#721341)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: FAREWELL, YE GREEN FIELDS AND GROVES
From: masato sakurai

The lyrics are in the Bodleian Library (Harding B 22 (370). The song is in Andrew Gant's Folk Songs of the British Isles (1997), which is taken "from the Madden Collection of Ballads, Cambridge." Recording is on THE BOSTON CAMERATA: Trav'ling Home; the notes say:

Farewell ye green fields -- Greenfield
"This very popular English song of the late eighteenth century remained current in the U.S. well into early twentieth century. It also gave birth to a number of religious imitations. This one, about Joseph and his brethren, comes from a Pennsyvania Mennonite book in shape notes; both the German and English texts we sing here are present in that source."

~Masato

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01 Jun 02 - 09:43 PM (#721347)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: FAREWELL, YE GREEN FIELDS AND GROVES
From: Sorcha

Wow, Masato!

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01 Jun 02 - 10:00 PM (#721351)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: FAREWELL, YE GREEN FIELDS AND GROVES
From: masato sakurai

A commentary on GREEN FIELDS ("How tedious and tasteless the hours") by George Pullen Jackson:

"The tune is to be found in S. Baring-Gould's Songs of the West, No. 100, as recorded before 1890 from the singing of an old man in Lamerton, England. We are informed by the editor of the collection that the song, 'Both Sexes Give Ear to My Fancy' which used this tune, had been very popular with aged people residing in the North of England, but that it was then 'long out of print and handed down traditionally'. The eraliest form of the tune seems to have been 'Es nehme zehn-tausend Ducaten' in Johann Sebastian Bach's cantata Mer hahn en neue Oberkeet (Cf. Bach-Gesellschaft, Vol. 29, p. 195). The earliest printed form of the Bach tune in England, according to Baring-Gould, was in The Tragedy of Tragedies, or Tom Thumb, 1734, as the setting of the song 'In Hurry Posthaste for a License'. The earliest occurrence of the tune with the 'Both Sexes' text was in The Lady's Evening Book of Pleasure, about 1740. The air is also found in Vocal Music, or the Songster's Companion, second edition, 1782, to the song entitled 'Farewell, Ye Green Fields and Sweet Groves'. This was probably the song whose tune was taken over bodily and whose words were parodied to make the above song 'Green Fields'. The author of the parody text was sometimes given in the fasola books as John Newton. The incidence of the song in southern song books of the first half of the nineteenth century ... indicates its one-time wide popularity also on this continent." (George Pullen Jackson, Spiritual Folk-Songs of Early America, 1937; Dover, 1964, pp. 93-94)

~Masato

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01 Jun 02 - 10:30 PM (#721358)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: FAREWELL, YE GREEN FIELDS AND GROVES
From: Uncle Jaque

Small world, Masato; I recently puchaced that very same CD "Travlin' Home", and have about worn it out playing it repeatedly!
My appologies for not mentioning those lyric variations of the tune; for some reason they just didn't seem to "get it" any more than the "Tedious" ones do, and I just didn't give it much thought. The Camerata's instrumental rendition of "Farewell Ye Green Fields" (essentially the same air)is, however, strikingly beautiful, and resonates with ear, mind, and Spirit as "how it ought to be".
The bass viol and / or cello was very popular as a Church instrument in New England back in the late 1700's & early 1800's; Our Town Historical Society has the one used in the Baptist Fellowship here in Yarmouth, Maine, in the 1820's and '30's, and I have found reciepts for replacement strings for it in the Church archives. General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, of Civil War fame (portrayed in ther movie "Gettysburg" a few years back) was reputed to be, among other things, a virtuoso with the "bass viol".

That ditty the old folks were singing in England sounds a lot more like what I had in mind, and I'll hit those links and check it out.
Many thanks for the research and links, fellas! You're all "Daisies"! (Mid to late 19th Century term there.)

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01 Jun 02 - 10:44 PM (#721360)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: FAREWELL, YE GREEN FIELDS AND GROVES
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)

Masato, that commentary by Pullen helps a lot. The melody used by Bach in his Cantata 212 (Mir hahn en neue Oberkeet = Peasant Cantata) could be the same as the one used for Farewell ye green fields and groves. It is likely that Bach based his melody on a popular tune.
Lewis Edson then used the same tune to set Newton's "How Tedious and Tasteless," as previously mentioned.

Now if only someone will come up with the tune from Baring-Gould's Songs of the West." (Then both of us will say WOW! WOW!, WYSIWYG). A reference to the American uses of the tune would also be helpful. Not in Randolph or Brown, at least with titles Greenfields or Farewell ye...

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01 Jun 02 - 10:52 PM (#721361)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: FAREWELL, YE GREEN FIELDS AND GROVES
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)

Hi, Uncle Jaque. Are you saying that the tune used in the Camerata Green Fields is the same (improved, of course!) as that midi in Cyberhymnal?
"Everything coming up daisies" is an expression I remember.

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01 Jun 02 - 11:18 PM (#721375)
Subject: Lyr Add: FAREWELL, YE GREEN FIELDS AND GROVES
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)

Lyr. Add: Farewell Ye Green Fields and Groves (Phillis?)

Farewell ye green fields and sweet groves
Where Phillis engaged my fond heart
Where nightingales warble their loves
And nature is dressed without art.

No pleasure they now can afford,
Nor music can lull me to rest
For Phillis proves false to her word
And Strephon can never be blest.

Oft times by the side of a spring
Where roses and lillies appear
Gay Phillis of Strophon would sing
For Strophon was all she held dear.

So soon as the sound by my eyes,
The passion that glow'd in my breast
She then to my grief and surprize
Prov'd all she said was a jest.

Too soon to my sorrow I find
The beauties alone that will last
Are those that are fixt in the mind
Which envy or time cannot blast.

Beware, then, beware who ye trust
Coquets(?) who to love make pretense
For Phillis to me* had been just
If nature had blest her with sense.

This is the broadside in the Bodleian, cited above by Masato as Harding B22 (370), no title but found as Farewell ye. I have kept the spellings. * If "would" inserted here, it makes more sense. A couple of words were blotted and are marked (?) The use of the old "s" letter suggests that it is not later than about 1820.
Doesn't seem to be much that is "Peasant," as the later subtitle to Bach's Cantata 212 would suggest.

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01 Jun 02 - 11:24 PM (#721378)
Subject: Lyr Add: GREENFIELDS
From: masato sakurai

The Boston Camerata's CD is HERE, with sound clips. Vocal "Greenfiels" in German & Englsih is also included. I'll check the Songs of the West version later if no one does (I have the book but it is not in front of me at present).

GREENFIELDS

Da Joseph sein' Brüder ansah,
In Hungersnoth stehen allhie
Sein Herz mit erbarmen war da,
Er fühlte, er weinte für sie;
Er stellte im Unfang sich fremd,
Erkenntlich zu machen ihr' Schuld
Und da sie nun waren beschämt,
erzeigt er sich freundlich voll Huld.

When Joseph his brethren beheld,
Afflicted and tremblng with fear,
His heart with compassion was filled,
From weeping he could not forbear;
A while his behavior was rough,
To bring their past sin to their mind;
But when they were humbled enough,
He hasted to show himself kind.

(From notes to the CD)

~Masato

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01 Jun 02 - 11:55 PM (#721392)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: FAREWELL, YE GREEN FIELDS AND GROVES
From: masato sakurai

Bach's aria in question is on J.S. Bach: Cant 80/202-204/209/211/212 (Click on "dics 3, track 25"). The words are:

Es nehme zehntausend Dukaten
Der Kammerherr alle Tag ein!
Er trink ein gutes Gläschen Wein,
Und laß es ihm bekommen sein!
(From HERE)

~Masato

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02 Jun 02 - 12:20 AM (#721409)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: FAREWELL, YE GREEN FIELDS AND GROVES
From: Uncle Jaque

Hmm... That's

http://cdnow.com/cgi-bin/mserver/SID=1085521444/pagename=/RP/SHARE/soundclip.html/UPC=4716330392/disc=03/track=25/source=wmf
..But I can't get it to open on RealPlayer for some reason.

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02 Jun 02 - 01:22 AM (#721426)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: FAREWELL, YE GREEN FIELDS AND GROVES
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)

They just list Windows Media. You should be able to get this free.
The price of that cd was right. Masato, you're a good salesman for them!
Yep, It's the one Lewis Edson used, all right. Now did J. S. borrow a folk tune for his Cantata 212? I would guess he did. But with its talk of "drinking a good glass of wine," I doubt that he took it from Faithless Phillis of the song I posted.

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02 Jun 02 - 08:43 AM (#721519)
Subject: ADD: Both Sexes Give Ear To My Fancy
From: Malcolm Douglas

Masato and I both cite the same broadside, but I suspect that I may have been thinking of a different Green Fields of America from the one Dicho had in mind. Here is the song from Songs of the West referred to above:

BOTH SEXES GIVE EAR TO MY FANCY

(Noted by Sabine Baring Gould and H. Fleetwood Sheppard from John Rickards of Lamerton, Devon)

Both sexes give ear to my fancy,
In praise of sweet woman I sing,
Confined not to Doll, Sue, or Nancy;
The mate of the beggar or king.
When Adam was first a-created,
And lord of the universe crown'd,
His happiness was not completed,
Until that a helpmate was found.

A garden was planted by Nature,
Man could not produce in his life,
But no rest had he till his creator
Discovered he wanted a wife.
He had horses and foxes for hunting
Which most men love dearly as life,
No relishsome food was a wanting
But still... he was short of a wife.

As Adam was resting in slumber,
He lost a small rib from his side,
And when he awoke - 'twas in wonder,
To see a most beautiful bride.
In transport he gazèd upon her,
His happiness now was complete;
He praisèd the bountiful Donor,
Who to him had given a mate.

She was not taken out of his head, sir,
To rule and to triumph in man.
Nor was she took out of his foot, sir,
By him to be trampled upon.
But she was took out of his side, sir,
His equal co-partner to be;
So, united is man with his bride, sir,
Yet man is the top of the tree.

Then let not the fair be despisèd
By man, as she's part of himself.
By woman let man be a-prizèd
As more than the world full of wealth.
A man without woman's a beggar,
Tho' by him the world were possess'd
But a beggar that's got a good woman
With more than the world is he bless'd.

From Songs of the West (Sabine Baring Gould, H. Fleetwood Sheppard and F.W. Bussell; in this case the revised edition of 1905). Baring Gould's full notes are as follows:

"This old song is a favourite with the peasantry throughout England. The words are printed in Bell's Songs of the English Peasantry, p. 231. He says, We have had considerable trouble in procuring a copy of the old song, which used, in former days, to be very popular with aged people resident in the North of England. It has been long out of print, and handed down traditionally. By the kindness of Mr. S. Swindells, printer, Manchester, we have been favoured with an ancient printed copy. "

"In the original the song consists of ten verses. The earliest copy of it that I know is in The Lady's Evening Book of Pleasure, about 1740. It will be found in a collection of garlands made by Mr. J. Bell about 1812, and called by him The Eleemosynary Emporium. It is in the British Museum. The air is found in Vocal Music, or the Songster's Companion, 2nd ed., 1772, to the song, Farewell You Green Fields and Sweet Groves, p.92. It was taken into The Tragedy of Tragedies, or Tom Thumb, 1734, as the air to In Hurry, Post-haste for a licence, and was attributed to Dr. Arne. In Die Familie Mendelssohn, vol.ii., is a scrap of music written down by Felix Mendelssohn, dated Leipzig, 16th August 1840, which is identical with the first few bars of this melody. But the earliest form of the air is in J.S. Bach's Comic Cantata, where a peasant sings it."

"We took the song down from John Rickards, Lamerton, and again from J. Benney, Menheniot. Mr. Kidson prints a Yorkshire version in his Traditional Tunes, 1891. Miss L. Broadwood has noted it down from the singing of a baker at Cuckfield, Sussex. Dr. Barrett gives our melody to The Gallant Hussar, No. 13 [in S.O.W]. We have also taken it down to this ballad; so has Mr. Sharp in Somerset."

A midi of the tune as given in Songs of the West can be heard, until it becomes available at Mudcat Midis, via this link:

Both Sexes Give Ear (midi)

Other versions of this song have been found in various parts of England, often as Old Adam or When Adam Was First Created; under the latter title it remains in the repertoire of the Copper family of Rottingdean, Sussex. There are several examples from Aberdeenshire in the Greig-Duncan collection, and the song was also quite widespread in the USA and Canada. There is a rather different example in the DT:

WEDLOCK  from White Spirituals of the Southern Uplands.

Roud Folk Song Index number 728.

There are broadside copies under a number of titles at Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads:

When Adam was first created ("Both sexes give here [sic] to my fancy ...")  Printed between 1840 and 1866 by J. Harkness, Church-Street, Preston. [Largely illegible] 2806 c.13(192)

Adam & Eve ("Both sexes give ear to my fancy ...")  Printed by Wm. Ford, York-st. Sheffield [no date]. Firth b.25(242)

In praise of dear women I sing ("Both sexes give ear to my fancy ...")  Printed by Liptrot, St. Helen's [no date]. Harding B 28(19) and Harding B 28(175)

Old Adam ("Both sexes give ear to my song ...")  Printed c.1837 by J. Wheeler, Manchester. 2806 c.17(319)

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02 Jun 02 - 08:47 AM (#721521)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: FAREWELL, YE GREEN FIELDS AND GROVES
From: masato sakurai

Another CD J.S. Bach: Secular Cantatas, with sound clip (track 34; mp3). A good salesman, aren't I?

~Masato

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02 Jun 02 - 02:47 PM (#721690)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: FAREWELL, YE GREEN FIELDS AND GROVES
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)

Malcolm, your posting is indeed "an embarassment of riches." "Both Sexes Give Ear....", and similar, are much more suited to the music than Newton's "How Tedious...." Baring-Goulds Notes explain much.

Mistakenly I thought Bach's Cantata 212 was a church cantata- it is so listed in the Penguin book of cds. The posting of the Les Violons du Roy cd by Masato with the notes on that recording show that it is a burlesque or comic cantata and now I can understand the inclusion of the aria "Es nehme zehntausand Ducaten." That mistake influenced my thinking throughout my inquiry.

I hate to impose for more information, but do either of you have the lyrics to "Farewell You (ye) Green Fields and Sweet Groves"? Is it another Adam and his mate version?

The link to Wedlock doesn't work on my browser, but the lyrics are located quickly by putting 'wedlock' in the Forum search.
This may have been posted before, but the Watersons have the hymn "How Tedious..." on their cd "Frost and Fire."

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03 Jun 02 - 11:58 AM (#722115)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: FAREWELL, YE GREEN FIELDS AND GROVES
From: Burke

Didn't notice yesterday that the discussion had migrated.

When Joseph his brethren beheld, is also by Newton. CCEL has it here.

Edson has nothing to do with the Green Fields/Tedious & tasteless version. He did write a completely different fuging tune called Greenfield that can be found in the Southern Harmony p. 121 or online

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03 Jun 02 - 12:40 PM (#722137)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: FAREWELL, YE GREEN FIELDS AND GROVES
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)

Quoting from the Baring-Gould note provided by Malcolm Douglas and Masato Sakurai, above, "But the earliest form of the air is J. S. Bach's Comic Cantata, where a peasant sings it." [Cantata 212, Mir hahn en neue Oberkeet]. If Lewis Edson didn't set "How Tedious...." to the aria from that cantata, who did?
The popularity and widespread use of Bach's music in both church and secular settings causes me to doubt that Edson would have been ignorant of a body of music that church musicians knew at the time (and still use regularly).

The Music of the New American Nation, vol. 3, Sacred Music From 1780-1820, New York Composers, Collected Works of Lewis Edson, Lewis Edson Jr., and Nathaniel Billings, edited by Karl Kroeger, probably has the answer to this question, but it is not available in the libraries here. (mentioned in thread 48046) How Tedious

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03 Nov 08 - 02:09 PM (#2483499)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: FAREWELL, YE GREEN FIELDS AND GROVES
From: Haruo

A couple of disparate jottings:

1) I don't think the Bodleian copy's handwritten emendation of "how" to "who" (last stanza of "Farewell ye green fields") necessarily improves the text. I'd sing "how" as readily as "who", maybe moreso knowing it to be the older reading. (I'm guessing there's no indication of who did the emending.)

2) The long eſſes may ſuggest a date prior to 1820, but my copy of Bramley and Stainer, Chriſtmas Carols New and Old, ſurely no older than about 1870 and probably printed closer to 1880, ſtill has them, whence I copied them onto one of my blogs...

Ladder of Mercy - Jacob's LadderK

1. As Jacob with travel was weary one day,
At night on a ſtone for a pillow he lay,
He ſaw in a viſion a ladder ſo high,
That its foot was on Earth, and its top in the ſky.

Chorus
Hallelujah to Jeſus, who died on the tree,
And hath raiſed up a ladder of mercy for me,
And hath raiſed up a ladder of mercy for me.

etc.

3) The 1933 Reorganized LDS Saints Hymnal has this one-stanza gem (I really do think it's a gem and could be used quite appropriately by Christians of any stripe) which they attribute to the 1841 Edition (i.e. the 1841 LDS hymnal):

This God is the God we adore,
Our faithful, unchangeable friend,
Whose love is as large as his power,
And knows not beginning nor end.
'Tis Jesus, the first and the last,
Whose Spirit will guide us safe home;
We'll praise him for all that is past,
And trust him for all that's to come.

Haruo

Haruo

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