Glad Tidings

Folklore, Dec, 2005 by Eddie Cass

Glad Tidings. By The Mellstock Band. Oxford: Serpent Press, 2004. 12.50 [pounds sterling] (CD). SER 008

This compact disk arrived for review in the middle of the Sheffield carol season and it proved to be a valuable comment on this pub tradition.

Seasonal carol offerings are usually of the familiar words and tunes, and hence it was a delight to receive a CD that seeks to present "A West Gallery Christmas." As the liner notes say, "West Gallery music ... [is] the name given to the distinctive harmony singing tradition that flourished in rural English churches from the early 1700s until the mid-nineteenth century. Much of it was composed, adapted and taught by people of humble origins." Glad Tidings is a very polished CD produced within that tradition. We are presented with carols set in often unfamiliar tunes or with words that no longer find their place in modern carol services. Reflecting the fact that the village band would play for dances in addition to supplying the hymn tunes for the Sunday service, the CD also has a number of dance tunes such as "Sir Roger de Coverley."

At home over the Christmas season, we interspersed our "Village Carols" CDs with a playing of The Mellstock Band's versions--but next year I shall be back at the pubs of Sheffield for their enthusiastic amateur performances.

Eddie Cass, The Elphinstone Institute, University of Aberdeen, Scotland