Dark, Plaintive Youth: A Song History
“The Dark, Plaintive Youth” is an Irish air that the Traditional Tune Archive classes as a planxty in the Dorian mode, and it is often credited to the blind harper Turlough O’Carolan (1670–1738).[1] That credit is disputed: Donal O’Sullivan, whose 1958 study of Carolan prints the air as No. 193 from the Pigot manuscripts, saw nothing to show that Carolan made either the tune or its words and called it “a doubtful attribution.”[1] The title is also attached to more than one melody: irishtune.info files it under a tune called “Dew on the Grass” but notes that the setting in the Carolan collection, the air discussed here, may be a separate tune.[2]
Hooked Harp, maple, various materials, 18th century. Shown for its subject; it has no connection to the air.
The Tune Archive links the air to “The Dark-Visaged Lad O’Gloran,” an English title it regards as P. W. Joyce’s mistranslation of the Irish name.[1] Joyce printed that air as No. 450 in Old Irish Folk Music and Songs (1909), among a group of tunes William Forde had transcribed from a manuscript that Patrick Carey, a County Cork piper, had lent him.[3] Joyce added that the Carey manuscript labeled the air “Carolan.”[3]
The guitarist Martin Simpson recorded a piece under this title as the opening track of Music of Ireland, a 1988 anthology of Irish tunes arranged for fingerpicking guitar.[4] Neal Hellman includes an arrangement under this title in Mountain Dulcimer Arrangements From Both Sides Of The Atlantic, a collection of 35 full mountain dulcimer arrangements, published by Fingers Of Steel.[5]
Sources
- Traditional Tune Archive: "Dark Plaintive Youth (The)".
- irishtune.info: "Dew on the Grass".
- Internet Archive: "Old Irish Folk Music and Songs" (P. W. Joyce, 1909).
- Mainly Norfolk: "Music of Ireland".
- Fingers Of Steel: "Neal Hellman, Mountain Dulcimer Arrangements From Both Sides Of The Atlantic".
- Image: Hooked Harp, maple, various materials, 18th century. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.