Deutsches Volksliedarchiv
Subsídios para a História do Romanceiro dos Açores by Teresa Araújo Review by: J. J. Dias Marques, Isabel Cardigos and Ann Henshall Lied und populäre Kultur / Song and Popular Culture, 48. Jahrg. (2003), pp. 274-278 Published by: Deutsches Volksliedarchiv Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4147830 . Accessed: 12/06/2014 19:23 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
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This content downloaded from 62.122.72.154 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 19:23:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Rezensionen Dissonanzen in der Weill-Rezeption und der populiren Rezeption seines Erbes. Dass gerade der Brecht-Weill, den der Whitman-Weill hinter sich lassen wollte, in den USA eine populire Weill-Renaissance einliutete - mit Hilfe von Lotte Lenya und Louis Armstrong - ist eine der Ironien seines Lebens. Als Kritik fiillt mir lediglich die ungleichgewichtige Professionalisierungder jeweiligen Foki und Erkenntnisinteressen ein, die jedoch bei einem solchen >>omnium gatherum(>German composer>amerikanisch>hautgoutamerikanischen Lebenskurvewho knew several ballads that I did not havedefinitivedefinitiveowork of 1909. If the chapters about Garrett and Braga (commented on above) seem to overrate the importance of the role of the Azorean fieldwork in the Portuguese context in general, chaptersII and V are, in my opinion, perfectly right to defend that role. These chapters are dedicated to three outstanding figures. Chapter II concerns that of Teixeira Soares de Sousa, who, between 1854 and 1868, managed to gather a superb collection of oral ballads, which he transcribedwith much respect for the texts, an attitude then 6 7 8
Braga, Te6filo: Romanceiro de Tradifdo Oral Moderna Portuguesa. Quest6es de Histdria e Teorizafdo.Lisbon 2000 (see part II, chapter 1, pp. 131-202). See ibd., pp. 184-192. See ibd., pp. 185-189, in which Arauijopresents the 64 passages in the Romanceiro GeralPortugueks (vol. III) that - with the persistence of a detective - she managed to discover that Braga had transcribedfrom earlierworks.
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Rezensionen unknown in Pan-Iberian ballad-books. Moreover, he possessed a surprisingly modern idea about the essence of oral literature, accurately assessing the value of collecting the largest possible number of versions of a given text-type. Chapter V concerns the figures of Joanne Purcell and Manuel da Costa Fontes, both responsible for the birth (between the end of the 1960's and the end of the 1970's) of the new age of Portuguese ballad studies, for their systematic and careful collecting and for their rigorous and in-depth works about the texts. In both these chapters, offers a most useful panorama on Aratijo the authors and she shows that the work they did in the islands and/or among emigrant communities on behalf of the Azorean balladrycarried, in fact, important consequences in the way we now deal with Portuguese ballads in general, with their collecting and their publication. And, taking into account these two chapters, any readerwill make his the words that Teresa Aratijowrites, concluding her book: we can [...] bring this panorama to an end, recognizing that the various lines along which the studies about the Azorean balladry have developed frequently took up remarkablepath-making characteristicswithin the Portuguese and often the Iberian contexts [...] [and that,] in different moments, their authors and collections became paradigmsof Portuguese ballad researchitself [p. 142]. J.J. Dias Marques, Algarve (Portugal) (translated by Isabel Cardigos and Ann Henshall)
Atkinson,David: TheEnglishTraditionalBallad:Theory,method,andpractice.Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate, 2002 (Ashgate popular and folk music series). 300 pp.,
ISBN 0-7546-0634-1.
David Atkinson has produced a nice overview of English balladry and related many keen insights into the phenomenon. He writes in a fine, high academic style which pleasantly exercises the mind, but which is perhaps rather too self conscious. Why should it take five pages to discuss a variant of the Unquiet Gravewhich Sabine BaringGould reworked only to let it languish, being only marginally relevant to both the tradition and to Atkinson's argument?Atkinson concludes ))if Baring-Gould really did invent the means to fulfil the tasks in the John Woodrich text, he perhaps tried too hardo (p. 68): an insight Atkinson himself could take to heart. As valid as his conclusions in the main are, they could have been presented more elegantly in less than 300 pages. In diction and in reference the English TraditionalBallad is certainly pitched for an informed academic audience. For instance, several chapters begin with a diagram of the tale roles distributed within a ballad complex according to David Buchan's method. for >He,Th:uH:u,, could so obvious. While Atkinson>>SF/SU,,, have in a footnote supplied the missing quickly information (or referred to the table of abbreviations so easily overlooked before the preface), it would have been much more to the point had Atkinson actually used the diagram's information in his argument. As it is, such diagrams remain isolated in the text as a sort of illustration might: generally, but not specifically, related to the argu-
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