The English Soundtrack

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From the 17th century to the 19th, street singers were characteristic of London life, often selling printed versions of the songs they sang.

The soundtrack includes songs from Ora Cogan, Tom McRae and The Wailin’ Jennys amongst others, with at least one recognisable song featuring in almost every episode in the six-part run. Stokoe, eds, Northumbrian Minstrelsy: A Collection of the Ballads, Melodies, and Small-Pipe Tunes of Northumbria ( Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1882); and F. It had retained a strong tradition of wassailing, and seafaring songs were important in the coastal counties of Kent and Hampshire.These rhymes seem to have come from a variety of sources, including traditional riddles, proverbs, ballads, lines of Mummers' plays, drinking songs, historical events, and, it has been suggested, ancient pagan rituals.

These seem to have been interrupted by the Reformation and Civil War and Commonwealth in the 16th and 17th centuries. It was premiered at the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols in King’s College Chapel, Cambridge on Christmas Eve of the same year it was composed, and Italian director Paolo Sorrentino used it to striking effect in the score to his 2013 film The Great Beauty ( La grande bellezza). There is long and varied history of Cornish dance from the medieval period, with records of strong traditions of morris dancing, mumming, guise dancing, and social dance. The latter won the the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 82nd Academy Awards in 2010. With the Industrial Revolution the themes of the music of the labouring classes began to change from rural and agrarian life to include industrial work songs.The attendance at, and numbers of folk clubs began to decrease, probably as new musical and social trends, including punk rock, new wave and electronic music began to dominate. The Airs Are Set to Music Exactly as They Are Now Sung, to Rescue Them from Oblivion, and to Afford a Specimen of Genuine Old English Melody: and the Words Are Given in Their Original Rough State, with an Occasional Slight Alteration To Render the Sense Intelligible (London, 1843).