minstrel: Ash Grove?

[Heather Rose Jones]

At 8:53 PM -0700 9/3/03, toni seales wrote:
>A friend asked if the song The Ash Grove is early; and
>if the lyrics that are common now are historically
>with that melody

Depends on what you mean by "early".  In a clearly unmistakable form, 
the tune first appears in 1802 in Edward Jones' collection "The 
Bardic Museum".  I've run into the opinion that one of the tunes 
appearing in the early 18th c. "Beggar's Opera" is a precursor to the 
tune.  I'm not sure that I'd go farther than noting that the two 
tunes have compatible harmonic structures (and the fact that I'm 
skimming through my copy of the Beggar's Opera right now and not 
recognizing which tune it's supposed to be points out that the 
resemblance isn't very strong).

All the currently-known lyrics date from the 19th century or later 
and are generally excellent specimens of  Victorian romantic taste 
(both the Welsh and English lyrics).  There isn't really any 
"official" version of the lyrics, in the sense of one set that is 
considered more "original" to the tune.  Gail Gurman has put together 
a web site at <http://www.gurman.org/ashgrove/ag_body.html> with a 
vast assortment of lyrics that have been sung to the tune.  Ah, and 
she includes a note from one source that the earliest known lyrics 
were published in 1806 and since they were in a collection entitled 
"Welsh Melodies with Appropriate English Words" they were presumably 
in English.  (Gail's a friend of mine -- which is how my "Welsh 
History" lyrics ended up on the site.)

Tangwystyl
-- 
*****
Heather Rose Jones
hrjones at socrates.berkeley.edu
*****