Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular Music

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

SHARP, Cecil James

(b 22 Nov. 1859, London; d there 28 June '24) English folk music collector, editor. Educated at Cambridge, worked in Australia; taught in England 1892-96, then principal of Hampstead Conservatory until '05. Saw the Headington Morris side dance acc. by William Kimber Jr on concertina '99; heard vicarage gardener John England sing "The Seeds Of Love' '03; set about collecting with missionary zeal: first publication was Folk Songs From Somerset in five parts '04-9, first three co-credited to Charles Marsh; Songs Of The West '05 and English Folk-Songs For Schools co-edited with Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould. He was prime mover in founding of English Folk Dance and Song Society '11, successor of Folk Song Society of 1898; EFDSS HQ in Regents Park is called Cecil Sharp House. He contributed songs and dances to Granville Barker's London prod. of Midsummer Night's Dream '14; visited USA several times collecting Anglo-American ballads (see also Francis James Child); he was accompanied '16-18 by amanuensis Maud Karpeles (b 12 Nov. 1885, London; d there 1 Oct. '76); she'd met him '09 in Stratford-on- Avon, where he taught at a summer school; she also accompanied Barker to NYC for Prod. of Midsummer. His English Folk Song: Some Conclusions '07 was the first major treatise on the subject; she edited fourth edition '65. Work based on field trips incl. English Folk Songs From The Southern Appalachians and Nursery Songs From The Appalachian Mountains '17-23. An example of continuity in folk is the Ritchie family: Sharp collected songs from them '17; John and Alan Lomax recorded them '30s for the LoC; Jean Ritchie, unborn at the time of Sharp's visit, became a leading figure in post-war USA folk revival. Sharp worked more and more in education, which he regarded as vital; collaborated with illustrator A P Oppé on The Dance: An Historical Survey of Dancing in Europe, published after his death. Karpeles worked with Ralph Vaughan Williams as adviser to Douglas Kennedy, dir. of EFDSS; wrote biography Cecil Sharp '33 with A H Fox Strangeways (the author of the groundbreaking Music Of Hindostan '14; revised edition of Sharp '67 was under her name alone). The Crystal Spring: English Folk Songs Collected by Cecil Sharp '87 from Oxford U. Press was edited by her. His significance lies not only in research but in the impetus he gave to wider appreciation of folk music; his disquisition also lived on in the work of composers like Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst, Percy Grainger and George Butterworth, who tapped the rich vein of trad. music.