Duffy’s Song
Words ENGLISH
REFERENCES
Morton Nance
Cledry plays p 23 NOTES
Robert Morton Nance wrote the Cledry plays during the early part of the 20th Century. Some of these plays were published in a collection under that title in 1956, others remain in manuscript form in the Royal Institution of Cornwall Library (Morton Nance box 4 ). Morton Nance does not identify sources for his music and whilst he clearly wrote some, others can be cross-referenced to oral tradition. In his own Words from the preface of The Cledry Plays, Federation of Old Cornwall Societies, Penzance, 1956: these plays were " aimed at carrying on the West-Penwith tradition of turing local folk tales into plays for Christmas acting. What they took over from these guise-dance drolls, as they were called, was their love of the local speech and their readiness to break here and there into rhyme or song" And of the music " the simple airs do not ask for accompaniement or for trained voices to do them justice. They are only a slight extension of the music that West-Penwith voices will put
into the dialogue."
