- Cloud Valley Music website -
- Andrew Cronshaw website -
- Andrew Cronshaw MySpace -

- Back to Reviews Introduction page -

Written in fRoots issue 281, 2006
 

BOOK + CD

PETE COOPER
English Fiddle Tunes
Schott ISBN 1-902455-57-6 (2006)

If you play, or want to play, English fiddle tunes, or even just want to know how they go, this book is the number one purchase. Not just a book; you get a CD too, of Pete Cooper playing all 99 tunes on solo fiddle, excellently as he does, inhabiting each one with fine tone, plenty of shape, lift and style and just enough hints of the possibilities of variation to trigger a player’s own developments.
      The tunes, from across England including hornpipes, 3/2 hornpipes, jigs, slip jugs, reels, rants, waltzes, polkas, marches, schottisches and morris tunes, come from thirty-three named sources, from early published collections through fiddlers’ manuscripts to individual living or recent musicians. Quite a few will sound familiar, but these are their most interesting and catchy versions, many with appended alternative and link bars, and there are plenty that even a dedicated sessioner won’t have encountered.
      They’re printed clearly in a large, easily read A4 book that's soft and will lie flat on your lap while playing, with plenty of space around them for pencilled notes. And, there are chord letters; though most creative people generally ignore such things and work out their own accompaniments, you may well find you’ll end up agreeing with them.
      In the introduction, in English, French and German, Pete gives a lucid and concise summing up of the range, history, connections, forms and traditions of the interpretation by English fiddlers of dance tune forms that spread across Europe since the late 17th century. He also gives some pointers to typical playing styles and phrasing.
      All this, and it’s only £10.99


© 2006 Andrew Cronshaw
 

You're welcome to quote from reviews on this site, but please credit the writer and fRoots.

Links:
fRoots - The feature and review-packed UK-based monthly world roots music magazine in which these reviews were published, and by whose permission they're reproduced here.

It's not practical to give, and keep up to date, current contact details and sales sources for all the artists and labels in these reviews, but try Googling for them, and where possible buy direct from the artists.
CDRoots.com in the USA, run by Cliff Furnald, is a reliable and independent online retail source, with reviews, of many of the CDs in these reviews; it's connected to his excellent online magazine Rootsworld.com 

For more reviews click on the regions below

NORDIC        BALTIC        IBERIA (& islands)   

CENTRAL & EASTERN EUROPE, & CAUCASUS   

OTHER EUROPEAN        AMERICAS        OTHER, AND WORLD IN GENERAL

- Back to Reviews Introduction page -