Folk song in England - Stephen Roud

LONGLISTED FOR THE PENDERYN MUSIC BOOK PRIZE

In Victorian times, England was famously dubbed the land without music
- but one of the great musical discoveries of the early twentieth
century was that England had a vital heritage of folk song and music
which was easily good enough to stand comparison with those of other
parts of Britain and overseas. Cecil Sharp, Ralph Vaughan Williams,
Percy Grainger, and a number of other enthusiasts gathered a huge
harvest of songs and tunes which we can study and enjoy at our leisure.

But
after over a century of collection and discussion, publication and
performance, there are still many things we don't know about traditional
song - Where did the songs come from? Who sang them, where, when and
why? What part did singing play in the lives of the communities in which
the songs thrived? More importantly, have the pioneer collectors'
restricted definitions and narrow focus hindered or helped our
understanding?

This is the first book for many years to
investigate the wider social history of traditional song in England, and
draws on a wide range of sources to answer these questions and many
more.