Fascinating. Thank you so much for the sharing of this.
I agree with you on the subject of Mr. Bent.
I'm very much reminded of some of the stuff I had to read whilst I was writing about George Petrie in the spring--not least Petrie himself, who had the charming tendency to write of the songs whose airs he'd transcribed (I was working from the 1967 reprint of his 1855 The Petrie Collection of the Ancient Music of Ireland):
Of the Anglo-Irish ballad sung to it, I only preserved, as a name for the air, the few words above given, (Petrie 1967, 181)
[after providing two verses of "An Buachall Caol Dubh", (The Dark Slender Boy) which is a profound song--Sean Doyle sang an English translation of it very nicely, the which I'll sendspace you an you've not heard it] This is enough, and perhaps too much... Cassidech Bán, or 'White Cassidy,'which is sung to [the same air] is still less appropriate to the sentiment of the melody, and is, moreover, of such a nature as will not allow even a specimen of it to be translated. (Petrie 1967, 21)
no subject
I agree with you on the subject of Mr. Bent.
I'm very much reminded of some of the stuff I had to read whilst I was writing about George Petrie in the spring--not least Petrie himself, who had the charming tendency to write of the songs whose airs he'd transcribed (I was working from the 1967 reprint of his 1855 The Petrie Collection of the Ancient Music of Ireland):
Of the Anglo-Irish ballad sung to it, I only preserved, as a name for the air, the few words above given, (Petrie 1967, 181)
[after providing two verses of "An Buachall Caol Dubh", (The Dark Slender Boy) which is a profound song--Sean Doyle sang an English translation of it very nicely, the which I'll sendspace you an you've not heard it] This is enough, and perhaps too much... Cassidech Bán, or 'White Cassidy,'which is sung to [the same air] is still less appropriate to the sentiment of the melody, and is, moreover, of such a nature as will not allow even a specimen of it to be translated. (Petrie 1967, 21)