Full English Transcription Programme: The Vaughan Williams Archive at the British Library, MS RVW2/1
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Part 1: RVW2/1/1 to RVW2/1/99
RVW2/1/1 The Green Mossy Banks
RVW2/1/2 The Basket of Eggs
RVW2/1/3 Barbry Ellen
RVW2/1/4 I Courted a Dark Girl (The False Lover)
abc notation
RVW2/1/5 When I Was Young [The Broken-Down Gentleman]
RVW2/1/6 Our Chief Mate's Name
RVW2/1/7 The Basket Of Eggs
RVW2/1/8 Green Lanes
RVW2/1/9 Broadstriped Trousers (Tarry Trousers)
RVW2/1/10 Villikins and His Dinah
RVW2/1/11 The Dew Is on ohe Grass
RVW2/1/12 The Milkpail [The Sweet Nightingale]
RVW2/1/13 The Green Mossy Banks
RVW2/1/14 I Hunted My Merry Dogs [Hunting Song]
RVW2/1/15 Silvy
RVW2/1/16 Come All You Roaring Boys
RVW2/1/17 I Once Loved a Dark Girl [False Lover]
RVW2/1/18 [Died For Love?]
RVW2/1/20 T'Old Tup (part of play of Ker [?] Valley)
RVW2/1/21 The Old Horse
RVW2/1/22 A Frolicsome Sargeant
RVW2/1/23 Bold William Taylor
RVW2/1/24 The Silvery Tide
RVW2/1/25 The Two Champions
RVW2/1/26 Seventeen Come Sunday
RVW2/1/28 Poor Mary
RVW2/1/29 Oats And Beans
RVW2/1/30 Wallflowers
RVW2/1/30A Jolly Sailor Boys
RVW2/1/32 Milkmaids
RVW2/1/33 O May He Never Prosper
RVW2/1/34 Erin's Lovely Home
RVW2/1/35 I Courted an Old Man
RVW2/1/36 [The Broken Down Gentleman]
Note: This is a duplicate of RVW2/1/5 transcribed above.
RVW2/1/38 Lord Ellenwater
RVW2/1/39 May Song
RVW2/1/40 The Lost Lady
RVW2/1/41 The Yorkshire Bite
RVW2/1/42 The Trees They Do Grow High
Notes: This MS is defective, and the barring is profoundly incorrect. The MS contains musical inconsistencies,
notational errors and spelling mistakes; much of it is barely legible. The original field notation is in pencil and the first
half of this was revised and rewritten in ink, and there are clear signs of problems. The second half is almost certainly faithful
to the performance of the singer, and illustrates graphically why pencil notation is inferior to audio recording. The version
provided here is the best that the transcribers could make of what is either a work in progress or an unfinished effort that Ralph
Vaughan Williams abandoned. The transcribers have tried to iron out the most egregious problems using the lightest of touches, but the
result is neither academically trustworthy nor plausibly singable. However, it is provided here because it contains many interesting
fragments that may assist students of variants or enthusiasts who enjoy making conjectural restorations.
RVW2/1/43 Lakes of Cold Finn
RVW2/1/44 Adieu My Lovely Nancy
RVW2/1/45 Green Bushes
RVW2/1/46 God Rest You
RVW2/1/47 [No Title]
Note: This tune bears some similarity to that of "The White Cockade".
RVW2/1/48 [No Title]
Note: This melody is similar to the tune for Lucy Wan, as sung by Mrs. Dann
and published in The Penguin Book of English Folk Songs eds. Ralph Vaughan Williams and A.L. Lloyd (1959).
RVW2/1/49 The Cuckoo and the Nightingale
RVW2/1/50 There Is An Alehouse
RVW2/1/51 Three Days Before Easter
RVW2/1/52 The Golden Glove
RVW2/1/53 The Red Barn
RVW2/1/54 Shannon Side
RVW2/1/55 May Song
RVW2/1/56 Geordie
RVW2/1/57 Rolling in the Dew
RVW2/1/58 The Yorkshire Bite
RVW2/1/59 Gilderoy
RVW2/1/64 Nine Joys of Mary
RVW2/1/65 Geordie
RVW2/1/66 High Germany
RVW2/1/67 The Young Soldier
Note This song is wrongly titled in the VWML archive as "The Jolly Sailor".
RVW2/1/68 Salisbury Plain
RVW2/1/69 Robin Hood's Men
RVW2/1/70 Robin Wood and the Pedlar
RVW2/1/71 Down By Some River
RVW2/1/72 Three Weeks Before Easter
RVW2/1/75 Lovely on tThe Water
RVW2/1/76 When I Was a Bachelor
Notes Lucy Broadwood has given us another version of the same rendition by Mr. Hilton. (See LEB/5/462). This transcription conflates the two versions to rectify some faults in RVW's notation.
RVW2/1/77 When Joan's Ale Was New
RVW2/1/78 Flower of London
RVW2/1/79 Dark Eyed Sailor
RVW2/1/80 Just As The Tide Was Flowing
RVW2/1/81 It's Of An Old Miser
RVW2/1/82 Plymouth Sound
RVW2/1/83 Man of Birmingham Town
RVW2/1/85 The Lady Looked Out
RVW2/1/86 When I Was a Young Man
RVW2/1/87 The Red Running Rue
RVW2/1/88 All You That Are to Mirth Inclined
RVW2/1/89 Old Christmas Day [All in the Morning]
RVW2/1/91 Down In Yon Forest
RVW2/1/92 High Germany
RVW2/1/93 Salisbury Plain
RVW2/1/94 Little Cabin Boy
RVW2/1/95 Rolling in ihe Dew
RVW2/1/96 Good Morning
RVW2/1/97 Noble Lord Archer
RVW2/1/98 Down in the Groves
RVW2/1/99 [Hurricane Wind]
Note For a transcription of this song that has been fitted with lyrics see
"Folk Songs Collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams," ed. Roy Palmer (1983) pp. 152-154.