Lark In The Clear Air: A Song History
The Lark in the Clear Air joins English verses by the Irish poet Samuel Ferguson (1810–1886) to a traditional Irish melody.[1] Accounts of the tune’s origin vary: the Traditional Tune Archive says Ferguson took it from an air called “An tailiur” in the Petrie collection, but adds that another version of the story credits an air, “Caisleán Uí Néill,” collected in the west of Ireland by his wife, Lady Mary Ferguson.[1] The Wind Repertory Project gives only the second account and attributes the words to Ferguson around 1850.[2]
Samuel Palmer, The Skylark, etching on chine collé, 1850. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). Shown for its title; it has no connection to the song.
A 78 rpm disc by the singer Frank Ryan on the Rex label credits the words to Ferguson.[3] The melody also crossed into instrumental tradition: a setting by the Northumbrian piper Billy Pigg (1902–1968) appears on the Leader album The Border Minstrel, issued in 1972, and in Miller & Perron’s Irish Traditional Fiddle Music (1977).[1] According to John Loesberg, as cited by the Traditional Tune Archive, the air served for many years as the opening of Ciarán Mac Mathúna’s radio programme Mo Cheol Thú.[1] Arrangers still turn to it, as in Clifton Taylor’s concert-band setting, published in 2011.[2]
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