Music Matters

4 February 2007

Sunday 4 February 2007 17:45-18:30 (Radio 3)

As the English Folk Dance and Song society celebrates its 75th anniversary, Tom Service visits Lincolnshire. From Percy Grainger's field recordings of folksong at Brigg to the peal of tuned bells at Croyland Abbey, he asks how music shapes the sense of where we live.

Duration:

45 minutes

In this programme

A Lincolnshire Odyssey
As the English Folk Dance and Song Society celebrates its 75th anniversary Tom takes his cue from pioneering folk song collectors Percy Grainger and Cecil Sharp and travels to Lincolnshire to find out how music, landscape and regional identity are inextricably linked. Tom is joined on his journey through the county by music lecturer Daniel Grimley and cultural geographer David Matless, both from Nottingham University.

English Folk Song and Dance Society 75^th Anniversary
The journey begins at Cecil Sharp House in London, home to some of the most important collections of traditional song and dance in the country. Singer and librarian Peta Webb shows Tom the actual phonograph Percy Grainger took to Lincolnshire to collect folk-song recordings, and copies of his extraordinarily detailed original transcriptions.

Percy Grainger
In 1905, Percy Grainger heard a folk-music competition in Brigg - here began his fascination with the folk-song of Lincolnshire. Grainger's extraordinary personality is revealed in a Self-Portrait of Percy Grainger and Tom talks to one of the editors, David Pear, to find out more about the man and his music.

Folk music and the Tealby manuscript
In the heart of Lincolnshire, Tom stops off at the King's Head pub in the picturesque village of Tealby to hear local folk songs performed from the jottings of a 19th Century paper-maker - the Tealby manuscript. Melodeon player Liam Robinson and singer Brian Dawson explain the importance of music in creating a sense of place.

Bell-ringing at Crowland Abbey

The journey ends in the far south of the county at Crowland Abbey and one of the most ancient of all musical traditions - bell-ringing. The bells of Crowland Abbey have been pealing for more than a thousand years, and their role in local life and the sound of the Lincolnshire fens is entwined.

Join Tom to discover how the distinctive sound of a county is forged, and how this sound is bound up with the identity of the region.

Music Matters

Episode and Playlist Information

• 17 February 2007
• 4 February 2007
• 21 January 2007
• 7 January 2007
• 10 December 2006
• 3 Dec 06 Ned Rorem
• 19 Nov 06 Prokofiev

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