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Who is Cecil Sharp?

10 Jul 02 - 02:56 AM (#745611)
Subject: Who is Cecil Sharpe?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull

I keep seeing his name mentioned on variuous folk websites but I still don't know who he is.Does anybody know who he is? thanks.john

10 Jul 02 - 03:01 AM (#745613)
Subject: RE: BS: Who is Cecil Sharpe?
From: Manitas_at_home

Cecil Sharp (no 'e') was a collector of folk music and dances and was one of the leading figures in the revival of folk music, song and dance in the early 20th century.

10 Jul 02 - 03:58 AM (#745626)
Subject: RE: BS: Who is Cecil Sharpe?
From: Nemesis

I'm sure if you do a search you will come up with many links including the EFDSS (ENglish Folk Song & Dance Society) whose HQ, I believe, is Cecil Sharp house in London. Equally, at least in the UK, your local library will provide resources and info including the Cecil Sharp SongBook, etc

10 Jul 02 - 04:16 AM (#745630)
Subject: RE: BS: Who is Cecil Sharpe?
From: masato sakurai

Two threads on Cecil Sharp:

Cecil Sharp Collection

CECIL SHARP JOURNAL?

Other links:

Cecil Sharp: A Brief Biography

Information about the Morris Ring

Cecil Sharp in America: collecting in the Appalachians, by Michael Yates. Worth reading.

Cecil Sharp in the West Midlands

English Country Dancing in the Words of Cecil Sharp

Cecil Sharp House

~Masato

10 Jul 02 - 04:37 AM (#745639)
Subject: RE: BS: Who is Cecil Sharpe?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull

Thanks everybody, especialy masato for all them links, it will take me all day to read them all, it will keep me busy! Thanks again.john

10 Jul 02 - 05:14 AM (#745645)
Subject: RE: BS: Who is Cecil Sharpe?
From: greg stephens

There is a lot of reading to be done on C Sharp,too much. The single fact that you might enjoy most (well I dont know if its a fact but it's the snippet that's stuck in my mind):his Road to Damascus moment was hearing an old gardener singing "The seeds of love" to himself while working. Cecil was a posh bloke, and this was his first conscious exposure to folksong.He said to himself "That's it" and from then on hislife was spent chasing more of the same. Doubtless you, John, and all Mudcatters will have had some similar moment, when folk music first jumped out of some thicket and bit your leg. And life is never the same again.

10 Jul 02 - 05:44 AM (#745654)
Subject: RE: BS: Who is Cecil Sharpe?
From: Hrothgar

And the gardener, if I remember rightly, had the entirely apropriate name of John England. Not sure if it's true, but ir is a good story.

10 Jul 02 - 05:46 AM (#745655)
Subject: RE: BS: Who is Cecil Sharpe?
From: Hrothgar

Okay, aPPropriate.

Somebody must have misappropriated a "p."

10 Jul 02 - 09:10 AM (#745749)
Subject: RE: BS: Who is Cecil Sharpe?
From: masato sakurai

Sharp collected "Seed of Love" from a Somerset gardener named John England in 1903. His photo is HERE (The "Seed of Love" link there could not be connected; Click here, instead). Found two more articles in part on Sharp (both are at Musical Traditions).

Nicely Out of Tune 1 - Part 1: from quixotic patriotism to post-war utopianism

England, whose England?: Class, gender and national identity in the 20th century folklore revival (esp. "3. The English Folk Revival: origins and consequences -- Pre-1914")
Hrothgar, the author says, "It was from Marson's gardener, appropriately named John England, that Sharp noted down The Seeds of Love the first of over 300 Somerset folk songs he collected and published."(underline added).

~Masato

10 Jul 02 - 09:12 AM (#745752)
Subject: RE: BS: Who is Cecil Sharpe?
From: masato sakurai

Nicely Out of Tune 1 - Part 1: from quixotic patriotism to post-war utopianism

10 Jul 02 - 11:12 AM (#745820)
Subject: RE: BS: Who is Cecil Sharpe?
From: Gervase

Thanks for the links to the Mike Sutton piece Masato - he's one of the best writers on 'the tradition' there is; nicely Orwellian in style, but without Orwell's pessimism.
As for Sharp himself, there's a potted history of his involvement in the first 'folk revival' here on the English Folk Dance and Song Society site.

10 Jul 02 - 11:20 AM (#745832)
Subject: RE: BS: Who is Cecil Sharpe?
From: chip a

The movie "Songcatcher" is loosely based on the experiences of Cecil Sharp and Olive Dame Campbell in western North Carolina.

10 Jul 02 - 11:55 AM (#745865)
Subject: RE: BS: Who is Cecil Sharpe?
From: greg stephens

I would echo Gervase's comment on how good the Mike Sutton piece is.(It's Masato's blue clickie on England's whose England). I imagine it is not good etiquette to reveal the real identity behind Mudcat nom-de-plumes, but I'm sure we can all be modestly pleased that said Mr sutton is a member of our little circle.

10 Jul 02 - 12:57 PM (#745901)
Subject: Lyr Add: THE SEEDS OF LOVE (from Cecil Sharp)
From: Don Firth

I checked DT first and Seeds of Love is listed, but the clicky leads me to a "Sorry, no documents were found which match your query."

The words are as follows:—

I sowed the seeds of love,
And I sowed them in the spring:
I gathered them up in the morning so soon
While the small birds so sweetly sing.
While the small birds so sweetly sing.

My garden was planted well
With flowers everywhere.
But I had not the liberty to choose for myself
Of the flowers that I love so dear.
Of the flowers that I love so dear.

The gardener was standing by,
And I asked him to choose for me.
He chose for me the violet, the lily and the pink,
But those I refused - all three.

In June there's a red rosebud,
And that is the flower for me.
I often times have plucked that red rosebud
Till I gainèd the willow tree.
Till I gainèd the willow tree.

This song has a really lovely melody (when I get time, I'm going to try to whup up a MIDI for it), and it's been beautifully recorded by Andrew Rowan Summers accompanying himself on the dulcimer. I have the old Folkways vinyl, but the record is available on Smithsonian-Folkways, Seeds of Love (1951) F-2021 (Cassette, $10.95; CD, $19.95). Lots of good love songs on this disc. (Summers has also done a beautiful record (probably several, actually) of ballads: The Unquiet Grave and Other American Tragic Ballads (1951) F-2364 (Cassette, $10.95; CD, $19.95)). Lots of "revival" singers used Summers's records as a source for some of their more serious stuff.

I really have to salute Masato for his posts. His information is always accurate, and the links he posts almost always help me expand my own knowledge. Thank you, Masato!

Don Firth

10 Jul 02 - 01:03 PM (#745905)
Subject: RE: Who is Cecil Sharpe? (Cecil Sharp)
From: MMario

There is already a midi here. okay - it is pretty basic.

try the supersearch rather then the DT search. it brings the song up.

10 Jul 02 - 01:49 PM (#745933)
Subject: RE: Who is Cecil Sharpe? (Cecil Sharp)
From: Don Firth

Thanks, MMario (how did you get that to come up?).

That's pretty much the way Andrew Rowan Summers sings it. The only difference is he does a little ornamentation when he sings the word "in" in the second line (and in the same spot in subsequent verses). The rest, as I recall, is the same.

Don Firth

10 Jul 02 - 07:35 PM (#746119)
Subject: RE: Who is Cecil Sharpe? (Cecil Sharp)
From: masato sakurai

Don Firth, my info is not always accurate. I typed the song title as "Seed of Love" in the post above.

~Masato

10 Jul 02 - 07:42 PM (#746127)
Subject: RE: Who is Cecil Sharpe? (Cecil Sharp)
From: John Routledge

Many thanks for asking the question John.

I have been intending to get more info on Cecil Sharp etc for AGES.

Thanks Masato for making my task much easier.

10 Jul 02 - 08:19 PM (#746156)
Subject: RE: Who is Cecil Sharpe? (Cecil Sharp)
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)

My older sister Una sang for Cecil Sharp and Maud Karpeles when they were visiting the Hindman Settlement School (KY)around 1918 or so. This is possible because Una was fourth in the line and I was fourteenth. She and her cousin Sabrina (Jason Ritchie's daughter) sang, "Fair Nottamun Town," and, "The Little Devils."

The neighbors allowed that he was "a puny sort of feller; needs to be better fed!" But they also noticed that he was kind, soft-spoken and a real gentleman.

11 Jul 02 - 06:50 AM (#746363)
Subject: RE: Who is Cecil Sharpe? (Cecil Sharp)
From: GUEST,pavane

I am not so sure about the story of the Seeds of Love being the catalyst, because he had ALREADY (1899) met the Headington Quarry Morris men, and started collecting Morris Dance.

11 Jul 02 - 06:55 AM (#746364)
Subject: RE: Who is Cecil Sharpe? (Cecil Sharp)
From: greg stephens

Thanks Pavane. I qualified my original posting about Seeds of Love as I really wasnt sure if that was Sharp's first folk contact, though it's often referred to as such. Maybe it was the first song he actually collected?

11 Jul 02 - 06:58 AM (#746366)
Subject: RE: Who is Cecil Sharpe? (Cecil Sharp)
From: pavane

Probably the first SONG, although there are songs with some of the Morris dances.

I know that all the books quote the story!

11 Jul 02 - 07:00 AM (#746367)
Subject: RE: Who is Cecil Sharpe? (Cecil Sharp)
From: IanC

Pavane

Though he had previously met the Headington Quarry dancers, Sharp did not follow this up until well after he started collecting folk songs

:-)
Ian

11 Jul 02 - 07:04 AM (#746369)
Subject: RE: Who is Cecil Sharpe? (Cecil Sharp)
From: greg stephens

Can anyone pinpoint the garden and the exact date of the Seeds of Love incident? Looks as if there should be an anniversary event approaching.

11 Jul 02 - 07:23 AM (#746373)
Subject: RE: Who is Cecil Sharpe? (Cecil Sharp)
From: GUEST,greg stephens

Just had a little browse.Seems the garden was atthe vicarage in Hambridge, Somerset.I've found two dates quoted, late August or October 1903.Anybody know anything more accurate?

11 Jul 02 - 07:35 AM (#746374)
Subject: RE: Who is Cecil Sharpe? (Cecil Sharp)
From: Dave Bryant

Sharp was staying at Hambridge vicarage in Somerset during October 1903 (I believe he was recovering from illness) when he heard the vicar's gardener, John England singing "The seeds of Love".

I agree that the aniversary should be marked, Greg, I'll try and find the exact day - CSH should know.

11 Jul 02 - 07:43 AM (#746378)
Subject: RE: Who is Cecil Sharpe? (Cecil Sharp)
From: IanC

This is something like what you want

Kimber was born in 1872. He was a bricklayer from the village of Headington Quarry, which provided Oxford with stone, and stonemasons, for generations. His father and grandfather had formerly danced in the village's morris team (which had virtually ceased performing after the 1887 Jubilee). That Christmas, Kimber and some friends revived it. As he explained in a subsequent interview, most of the dancers normally worked in the building trade, but unusually bad weather "froze us all out." So, they decided to dance on Boxing Day and "see if we can't get a bob or two." Kimber described the half-sovereign that Sharp gave him as "a Godsend."

Sharp incorporated some of Kimber's tunes into a suite for strings, but paid no further attention to the dances. Then, in September 1903, he visited a musical friend from his Adelaide days. Charles Marson was now the perpetual curate of Hambridge in Somerset, a Christian Socialist, and a trial to the local bishop. It was from Marson's gardener, appropriately named John England, that Sharp noted down The Seeds of Love the first of over 300 Somerset folk songs he collected and published.

From here.

:-)
Ian

11 Jul 02 - 07:45 AM (#746379)
Subject: RE: Who is Cecil Sharpe? (Cecil Sharp)
From: Wolfgang

picture of said gardener

Wolfgang

11 Jul 02 - 07:49 AM (#746380)
Subject: RE: Who is Cecil Sharpe? (Cecil Sharp)
From: Dave Bryant

I was wrong about October. The RVW library at CSH gave me the date as 22nd August 1903.

They also said that Eddy Upton might be organising something - anyone know any more ?

11 Jul 02 - 07:56 AM (#746383)
Subject: RE: Who is Cecil Sharpe? (Cecil Sharp)
From: nickp

Try contacting Folk South West, c/o Montacute House, Montacute, near Yeovil, Somerset tel 01935 822911

11 Jul 02 - 08:09 AM (#746386)
Subject: RE: Who is Cecil Sharpe? (Cecil Sharp)
From: GUEST,greg stephens

we are all thinking along similar lines! I just emailed Eddie Upton ten minutes ago to ask if anything's going on.I seem to have lost a posting, so I'll add another bit of info that may turn up in duplicate. The August and October dates are both wrong. I've just found a facsimile of the relevant page of Sharp's notebook on my bookshelf(in Bob Pegg's excellent "Folk" book). It is a little illegible and blotted unfortunately, but it seems to be Sep 11(or possibly 14 or19).

11 Jul 02 - 09:08 AM (#746438)
Subject: RE: Who is Cecil Sharpe? (Cecil Sharp)
From: masato sakurai

Maud Karpeles, in her Cecil Sharp: His Life and Work (RKP, 1967, pp. pp. 31-31), writes about Sharp's encounter with the song like this:

"Toward the end of the summer holidays of 1903 Cecil Sharp went to the small village of Hambridge in Somerset to search for folk songs. His host, Carles Marson, was not optimistic, but as he afterwards admitted (in the preface of Folk-Songs from Somerset, vol. I):

The folk-song is like the duck-billed platypus in this particular, you can live for years within a few yards of it and never suspect its existence... Eight years of constant residence in the small village of Hambridge in Somerset had left him [the writer] in Stygian ignorance of the wealth of art which that village contained.... Only one song, and that by chance, had fallen on his untouched ears.

"Charles Marson related (also in Folk-Songs from Somerset) that he had mentioned this song to several musical friends, bu at last Cecil Sharp came to Hambridge, heard it sung and in a moment recognized its value.
"The song was 'The Seeds of Love' and the singer was John England, the village gardener. And it was through this song and this singer that Cecil Sharp had his introduction to the living folk-song*. It happened in this way. Cecil Sharp was sitting in the vicarage garden talking to Charles Marson and to Mattie Kay, who was likewise staying at Hambridge, when he heard John England quietly singing to himself as he moved the vicarage lawn. Cecil Sharp whipped out his notebook and took down the tune; and then persuaded John to give the words. He immediately harmonized the song; and that same evening it was sung at a choir supper by Mattie Kay, Cecil Sharp accompanying. The audience was delighted; as one said, it was the first time that the song had been put into evening-dress."

*"On 10th June, 1961, a plaque on the wall of the vicarage garden was unveiled by the present writer [i.e. Karpeles], the ceremony being attended by several hundred people from all parts of the country. The plaque bears the inscription:

In the garden of this Vicarage in September 1903
CECIL SHARP
while staying with his friend and early collaborator
CHARLES LATIMER MARSON
Heard JOHN ENGLAND sing 'The Seeds of Love'
This incident inspired the Folk Song revival in England

There has always been some uncertainty as to the exact date on which Cecil Sharp collected 'The Seeds of Love', because, contrary to his usual practice, he does not give this in his notebooks. For the first forty-two songs there is only a general indication, i.e. 'September 1903' (except for two which are undated). One had therefore assumed that they were all collected during that month. However, correspondence which has recently been examined suggests that 'Seeds of Love' may have been noted on 22nd August." (footnote by Karpeles)

~Masato

11 Jul 02 - 09:21 AM (#746443)
Subject: RE: Who is Cecil Sharpe? (Cecil Sharp)
From: GUEST,greg stephens

Thanks Masato.I have just had another look at the notebook page. It could say"sept 1903", and the printer has chopped off the "03" when reproducing it for the book. It certainly looks like sept 11 or 19 as it's printed here.

11 Jul 02 - 09:44 AM (#746448)
Subject: RE: Who is Cecil Sharpe? (Cecil Sharp)
From: GUEST,greg stephens

Just had an email from Eddie Upton, they are indeed planning a festival at Hambridge next year.They have gone for the Aug 22 date, which doesnt square with Sharps notebook but there is other evidence apparently.

11 Jul 02 - 10:10 AM (#746467)
Subject: RE: Who is Cecil Sharpe? (Cecil Sharp)
From: fogie

One of the most informative threads Ive looked into . Thank you all

11 Jul 02 - 10:20 AM (#746471)
Subject: RE: Who is Cecil Sharpe? (Cecil Sharp)
From: masato sakurai

The same "Seeds of Love" manuscript in Pegg's book, which Greg mentioned above, is also reproduced in facsimile in Karpeles' book (between pp. 4 and 5). Its key is A. However, the key is G, for the version in Cecil Sharp's Collection of English Folk Songs, edited by Maud Karpeles, vol. 1 (Oxford UP, 1974, No. 153-D), which says "Sung by John England at Hambridge, Somerset, September 1903." Was the manuscript written at that time and reproduced from Sharp's notebook?

~Masato

11 Jul 02 - 10:23 AM (#746473)
Subject: RE: Who is Cecil Sharpe? (Cecil Sharp)
From: GUEST,greg stephens

Masato, what can you see of the date on the reproduction you have in the Karpeles book? Doesit look like sept19 or sept 1903?

11 Jul 02 - 10:47 AM (#746488)
Subject: RE: Who is Cecil Sharpe? (Cecil Sharp)
From: masato sakurai

Greg, exactly the same as the one in Pegg's book. It looks like "Sept. 19" or "14". If Karpeles is right in remarking: "contrary to his usual practice, he does not give this in his notebooks," then the manuscript would not be from the notebook(s).

~Masato

11 Jul 02 - 11:55 AM (#746559)
Subject: RE: Who is Cecil Sharpe? (Cecil Sharp)
From: greg stephens

Intriguing. Maybe the 03 got chopped off. Eddie Upton has just emailed me, to say that he has seen a letter from Cecil Sharp, dated August 23,1903, in which he describes the incident as happening "yesterday". That seems fairly conclusive. He must have written up his notebook later?