The Week's Music...

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 927, 17 May 1957, Page 24

The Week's Music...

by

SEBASTIAN

N a civilised age of recording and good communications, the need for folk song is dying out, and with it the songs themselves. As a corollary, musicians all over the world have realised for half a century now that unless these songs were somehow captured and collected, they would vanish into a dim past, and we would lose the most natural music in existence. So the folk music societies were formed, and thousands of songs were compiled (from the horse’s mouth, as Anna Russell says) to prevent the genus from becoming as extinct as the moa. They are fascinating, these ditties, speaking as they do of love and death, hardship and employment-the basic things of social life. They may be as simple as nursery rhymes, or complex as a Beethoven melody; they are always appealing and memorable, for it is only through generations of memory that we have them at all; and their chief quality is an enduring charm, to hold attention in all ages, all times. The series of American folk song recordings currently heard (National stations) called All Day Singing is therefore within everybody’s taste, and contains songs that anyone can enjoyor even sing. Henry Walter, who intro-

duces the programmes, is an illuminating and friendly evangelist for the music, and links together types of songs to make a consistent recital of each programme. The various singers are expert in their job, and have a convincing delivery; emotionally the impact is nil, though a "deadpan" voice can sometimes actually intensify a highly-charged song. One ‘feature of many of the songs is the modal nature of the tunes, which seems to place their origin centuries ago, though, of course, this could be coincidence; but some are certainly derived from European songs, as the great collector Cecil Sharp found many years ago-for instance, one duet called "Jimmy Randal," started in life as "Lord Randal’s Lover"; while another had the words of "Tavern in the Town"’-but quite a _ different tune. Others again are purely New World, with words rooted in American lifeoften of pioneer times-and music which is simple and direct, though by no means as banal as most of the cow-boy-type songs. Mr Walter is doing an excellent job here, especially in bringing this music to our notice; but I feel the real credit still belongs to the people who long ago poured out their feelings in the songs themselves.