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DAVE TOWNSEND - Complete Dance Music From The Sharp Collection Volume 1: Tunes For Social Dance And Step-Dance 

DAVE TOWNSEND - Complete Dance Music From The Sharp Collection Volume 1: Tunes For Social Dance And Step-Dance 
Serpent Press ISBN: 9781838408305 

Dave Townsend’s Serpent Press has provided an invaluable source to anyone with an interest in English dance music; this latest publication will join around a dozen others on the shelves in this house, starting with his first collection of country dance tunes in the early 1980s.

The 203 tunes are nearly notated by Cecil Sharp during his extensive search for songs during the first quarter of the 20th century in the southern half of England, though a couple of dozen were garnered during his trips through Appalachia. They have not been given as much prominence as the very many songs that he collected. The press release tells us that “most… remained in his notebooks and were never published.” A strange coincidence, then, that some of the tunes he collected from Gypsy musicians also appear in A Secret Stream which was recently reviewed in this magazine (LT142).

Everything about this publication speaks of high quality. The notated music is clear, on good quality paper, the background notes are carefully researched, well presented and the whole is very well laid out. The names and, where known, the ages of the informants are given; nearly all are men of advanced ages from late 50s upwards to 89. Around three-quarters of the tunes are in the keys of G and D, and all the familiar rhythms for dance tunes are used.

Three full page photographs remind us anew of the fact that Sharp was a very able portrait photographer. Each photo of the fiddler holding his instrument seems to tell us a great deal about them and are worthy of careful examination.

www.davetownsendmusic.com

Vic Smith

 

This review appeared in Issue 143 of The Living Tradition magazine