Annotation:Summer is Come (The)

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X:1 T:Summer is come and the grass is green, The M:3/4 L:1/8 B:P.W. Joyce - Ancient Irish Music (1873, No. 18 pp. 19-20) Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:F (3A/=B/c/ d/>c/A/G/|A>G E/D/E DD|D3 D/E/ FG|A2 fe [F/d/]>c/(3A/B/c/| [F3d3] D/E/ FG|[F2A2][Ff]e [F/d/]>c/(3A/B/c/|[F3d3] f/e/ [F/d/]c/A/G/|A>G [^C/E/]D/E DD|D3||



SUMMER IS COME, THE. AKA - "Summer is come and the grass is green (The)." Irish, Air (3/4 time). D Minor (Joyce): D Major (O'Neill). Standard tuning (fiddle). One part. Sergeant James O'Neill re-barred Joyce's tune, changed the mode from minor to major, and added other flurishes, but it is the essentially the same tune as printed by Joyce. The first stanza of the words Joyce prints goes:

The summer is come and the grass is green,
The leaves are budding on ev'ry tree,
The ships are sailing upon the sea,
And I'll soon find tidings of gramachree.

Paul de Grae notes that Petrie's setting (Stanford/Petrie, No. 555), obtained from Joyce, has the final four bars repeated to give a twelve-bar whole, but Petrie cites Joyce's source as "Michael (sic) Hennessy, Kilfinnane"[1]

Bunting's "The Summer is coming" (AKA "Summer is icumen in") is a different, unrelated air.


Additional notes
Source for notated version : - "I took down both air and words in 1853, from the singing of John Hennesy, of Kilfinane in the county Limerick" [Joyce, 1873], although in Joyce's 1909 volume he gives Hennesy's name as 'Jack'; Petrie obtained the tune from Joyce; James O'Neill [O'Neill] (James was Francis O'Neill's collaborator, but was no relation).

Printed sources : - Howe (1000 Jigs and Reels), c. 1867; p. 29. P.W. Joyce (Ancient Irish Music), 1873; No. 18, pp. 19-20. Joyce (Old Irish Folk Music and Songs), 1909; No. 416, p. 227. O'Neill ( Music of Ireland: 1850 Melodies), 1903, No. 482, p. 84. Stanford/Petrie (Complete Collection of Petrie's Irish Music), 1905; No. 555, p. 141.






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  1. Paul de Grae, “Notes on Sources to Tunes in the O’Neill Collections”, 2017 [1]