Music of Somerset - Folk Music

Folk Music

The county has a well-documented and still vibrant folk music heritage, as it was studied by one of the earliest British musicologists, Cecil Sharp, who cut his teeth on the rich vein of folk music tradition in Somerset. Sharp began his career of collecting folk songs in Somerset in 1903. Cycling around the county during holidays, Sharp ultimately collected more than 1,500 songs from Somerset. The folksinging tradition in Somerset centers on solo, a cappella singing and playing—at home, at work, and at gatherings, small or large. Sharp's five volume collection of Somerset folk songs formed the basis for his English Folk Song: Some Conclusions, a seminal 1907 publication. Some of Sharp's collections formed the basis for Songs of the West (with Sabine Baring-Gould) and Somerset Rhapsody by Gustav Holst and the "March from Somerset" in Vaughan Williams' English Folk Song Suite.