'Child Ballads' ...Brian Peters Songs of Trial and Triumph is a 90-minute solo performance of some of the greatest of the ‘Child Ballads’: great ‘story-songs’ that are the crown jewels of the British folksong tradition.
Brought together in the 19th century by Harvard professor F. J. Child, drawing on the publications and manuscripts of Thomas Percy, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Burns and others, these centuries-old ballads are packed with murder and magic, love and lust, trickery, tomfoolery and The Devil himself.
Brian Peters is one of the best interpreters of this repertoire: a singer who brings passion and narrative skills to his performance, and multi-instrumental skills on guitar, concertina and melodeon that create a variety of musical textures. He’s also a researcher who has dug out unique versions of the ballads, and his knowledge of the work of Child, and the singers who carried the old songs down to us - shepherds, nurses, gypsies - allows him to set the ballads against an informative account of their background.
Songs of Trial and Triumph is a presentation that encompasses drama, emotion, accomplished musicianship, education, humour and, above all, entertainment. It brings the old ballads vividly to life in a form that can entrance even those with no previous experience of this kind of song.
A brilliant performance- a succinct and well-crafted presentation of some hefty subjects, with real economy and no loss of substance. Everyone enjoyed it thoroughly. Sam Lee, English Folk Dance & Song Society