Music of Somerset

Somerset is a county in the southwest of England. It is home to many types of 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 capella 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 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.

Classical

The City of Bath Bach Choir (CBBC) was founded in October 1946 by Cuthbert Bates, who was also a founding father of the Bath Bach Festival in 1950. The choir gave its inaugural concert in June 1947 in Bath Abbey, a performance of J. S. Bach's great Mass in B Minor. Cuthbert Bates, as well...
Read More