Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/117

 REVIEWS.

English Folk-Song. Some Conclusions. By Cecil J. Sharp. Simpkin, 1907. 410, pp. xvi + 143.

Mr. Cecil Sharp has long been known as an ardent and enthusiastic collector and investigator of English folk-songs. In consequence, all lovers of folk-music will eagerly welcome the present well-arranged volume, which embodies some of the valuable conclusions which he has reached in this field of research.

The scope of the book is sufficiently indicated by the titles of its chapters, which run as follow : — Definition ; Origin ; Evolution ; Conscious and unconscious music ; The modes ; English folk-scales ; Rhythmical forms and melodic figures ; Folk-poetry ; Folk-singers and their songs ; The decline of the folk-song; The antiquity of the folk-song; The future of the English folk-song.

Early in the book Mr. Sharp endeavours to define exactly what is meant by the term "folk-song": —

"The expressions 'peasant-song,' 'country-song,' and 'the song of the common people,' all mean one and the same thing, viz. 'folk-song,' and may be used indifferently in contradistinction to the ' town-song ' or ' art- song,' i.e. the song of the cultivated musician. Strictly speaking, however, the real antithesis is not between the music of the town and that of the country, but between that which is the product of the spontaneous and intuitive exercise of untrained faculties, and that which is due to the conscious and intentional use of faculties which have been especially cultivated and developed for the purpose."

This conclusion may at first appear satisfactory, but on closer observation it is open to the objection that not every musical

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