The Oak and the Ash arranged by Stephen Dunstone

The Oak and the Ash Traditional English Tune For Intermediate 3-part harp ensemble with easier 4-part version Please click the "About this work & Performance Notes" heading below for further details This book is supplied as a score and set of 4 parts   Buy this music now £12.00 +p&p

Artist Profile and catalogue of works - Stephen Dunstone

This player uses cookies in accordance with YouTube (Google) Privacy & Terms. They may collect usage data for analytics purposes.

---

This player uses cookies in accordance with Soundclouds Cookies policy. They may collect usage data for analytics purposes.

The Oak and the Ash
Traditional English Tune

There are four parts as follows::-

Melody
Melody / Counter Melody
Harmony
Harmony 2

Apparently it’s fairly common in English folk songs for the singer to be a country girl who deeply regrets having moved to a big city, and longs to return to the simple pleasures of the home that she has left. The opening of The Oak and the Ash goes as follows:

Verse:
A North Country maid up to London had strayed,
Although with her nature it did not agree,
She wept and she sighed, and so bitterly she cried
“How I wish once again in the North I could be.
Chorus:
Oh the oak and the ash and the bonnie ivy tree,
They flourish at home in my own country!”

The number of verses and even the words vary from version to version, but the sentiment’s always the same: she will spurn any advances from these decadent city men, “for the man that I wed must be north country bred and tarry with me in my north country home...”

I’ve also heard different cadences at the ends of verses. My arrangements are in G minor, and although there are plenty of sharpened leading notes (F#s) as in a conventional harmonic minor scale, I’ve chosen to base my verse endings on the versions where the melody ends G-F natural -G which allows for a Gm-Dm-Gm cadence and creates a lovely modal feel that emphasises the wistful folk-tune character of the piece.

Version for 3-part Harp Ensemble

The music in both these versions of The Oak and the Ash is essentially the same, the only significant difference being that in this 3-part version the Melody players maintain a left hand quaver accompaniment with frequent lever changes in the gaps. This, while perfectly manageable, does require a reasonable degree of nimbleness, so to make the piece accessible for players who might not yet be quite so nimble, I created the 4-part version in which I’ve taken all those left hand quavers from the Melody part and used them as the basis of a dedicated Harmony 2 part.

This 3-part version, though, is excellent practice for developing swift leverchanging technique...

Version for 4-part Harp Ensemble
easier mixed ability

After writing the 3-part version of The Oak and the Ash, I was conscious that there might be some Melody players who felt slightly frazzled by the constant leaping up and down between changing levers and maintaining the flow of the left hand quavers, so I decided to create this 4-part version where all those quavers are given to the Harmony 2 part (with a few more added in). This part is particularly important in the second verse where the Harmony 1 players only have rolled chords.

The l.h./r.h. indications in the Harmony 2 part are just a suggestion for keeping both hands in play. To do so makes things easier and more satisfying; it looks better, too. Suggested use of left hand or right hand are indicated throughout the Harmony 2 part by tails-down or tails-up respectively.

I haven’t done this for the Melody players because their left hands are constantly busy with lever changes, but I have added l.h. for occasional notes in the Counter Melody that appears from verse 2.

Title:	The Oak and the Ash
Composer:	Arranged by Stephen Dunstone
Instrumentation:	3 Lever or Pedal Harps & 4 Lever or Pedal Harps
Level:	Intermediate Ability
Format:	A4 stapled score and set of 4 A4 parts
Weight:	160gm
ISMN:	979-0-57046-466-1
Our Ref:	SD1071
Publisher:	Creighton's Collection
Printer/Distributor:	Creighton's Collection
Edition/Year:	2025
Origin:	UK

3-Part Sample Page

4-Part Sample Page