Welcome to the third episode of The Thunder Mutters, featuring 'May' from John Clare's 'The Shepherd's Calendar’, performed by Adam Horovitz, and interspersed with tunes from Clare’s tune manuscripts performed by Becky Dellow.

We’ll be coming back next month with ‘June’, but will squeeze in an episode looking at Shelley in a fortnight, so please come back then and take a listen. 

All the tunes in this episode have been taken from John Clare's tune manuscript books, and Becky's arrangements used the transcriptions provided by Marion Ross in George Deacon's book John Clare and the Folk Tradition (Sinclair Browne Ltd., 1983).

The tunes, whose histories are discussed in the show, are listed here for your convenience, in order of appearance:

Ere around the huge oak, Jockey to the Fair, Cuckoos Nest [sic], Woodpecker, Lass of Richmond Hill, All around the Maypole see how they trott, Englands Glory[sic], Cuckoos Nest (repeat), Adieu my native Land Adieu, Q[u]eens March.

The Thunder Mutters’ theme tune is The Gardengate

References:

Christian, Roy, Old English Customs (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1972)

Deacon, George, John Clare and the Folk Tradition (London: Frances Boutle Publishers, 2002)

‘Jockey to the Fair’, The Session (No date) <https://thesession.org> [Accessed 10 May 2020]

Kuntz, Andrew, and Valerio Pelliccioni, Traditional Tune Archive (2017) <http://tunearch.org> [Accessed 12 May 2020]

Molnar, John W., Songs from the Williamsburg Theatre (Williamsburg, Virginia: Colonial Williamsburg, 1974)