Episode 33. Cecil Sharp
SYNOPSIS
Personally alerted to folk dance at Headington, Oxfordshire in 1899 and to folk song at Hambridge, Somerset in 1903, Cecil Sharp (1859-1924) spent the rest of his life committed to researching and transcribing what he believed to be a disappearing tradition in the English countryside as social patterns and customs changed. By the time of his death, five years after the end of the First World War, in which he lost several close associates in the folk movement, Sharp had assembled almost 5,000 songs and tunes, more than any other English collector.
Despite his domination of the folk song and dance movement, reflected in the naming of the specially-built London headquarters, Cecil Sharp House after him in 1929, there has been no full biography of the man written since the Fox Strangway’s 1933 account, updated by Maud Karpeles in 1955, prior to her own account in 1967.
David Sutcliffe’s biography therefore provides a welcome modern reappraisal. The Episode sketches out Sharp’s life, and looks at his reputation today, covering the ten years in Australia, his complex relationship with fellow collector, Mary Neal, his politics, attitudes to women, inaccurate suggestions of profiteering and how he shaped the folk song and dance movement.
GUEST
David Sutcliffe has long held an interest in folk song collection in the West Country of England, specifically in Somerset, where he lives. He is the first returning Guest on the podcast, having talked in Episode 3 about his biography of the Reverend Charles Marson, the incumbent at the village of Hambridge, Somerset at whose vicarage Cecil Sharp first heard the folk-song, The Seeds of Love, in 1903. Having analyzed in detail Sharp’s collecting in Somerset, he has spent three years looking afresh at Sharp’s life, culminating in the publication of his biography of Sharp on Thursday 12 October 2023.
For more information on how to purchase David Sutcliffe’s biography, please please visit https://cecilsharpspeople.org.uk/
Cecil Sharp House, Camden, NW1 7AY, will be hosting the book launch of David’s nnew biography of Cecil Sharp on Friday 5 December. Further details will be released on https://www.efdss.org/
David’s interview with Simon Machin was recorded online on 9 October 2023.