The Spider, performance materials + license

Quick summary

• Forces: SATB
• Duration: c. 1'50"–2'45"
• Difficulty: easy
• Occasions: any occasion, protest songs
• Text: traditional (partially rewritten by Canon Edward Mason, c. 1877)
• Language: English
• Date of composition: 2020

Licenses include the appropriate number of print-outs for the specified ensemble size, and are valid for unlimited performances by the same ensemble. Please choose the appropriate license for your choir size.

Performance materials include two copies of the full score – one with and one without a piano reduction.

Detailed info

In this simple folksong, the narrator watches a spider at work and drifts into a reflection on the different lots of the rich and poor. The song, as it has come down to us in 19th-century publications, is a patchwork of words from oral and written traditions.

The words and melody in this version (Roud 1372), are as published in: Fuller Maitland, J. A., and Lucy E. Broadwood, eds. English County Songs: Words and Music. London: Leadenhall Press, 1893. In her notes on the transcription, Lucy Broadwood writes: ‘From Miss Mason's Nursery Rhymes and Country Songs [1877]. The words, taken down from a peasant, were disentangled and partly re-written by the Rev. Canon Edward Mason.’ 

There are four verses in total, of which the fourth is difficult to scan. The third verse has a rather different character from the previous two. Stef guesses that verses 3–4 were most heavily tampered with (or indeed fully composed) by Mason, while 1–2 are more closely related to the song that circulated in oral tradition. Of course we can’t know for sure! Verse 3 is included as an optional extra in this arrangement. It has a rather moralising tone, drawing heavily on scripture, and seems quite 'literary' in comparison to the other verses. However, including it does give the song a sense of completeness, and the final line, about 'riches', is probably as worth repeating today as ever: 'when you think to hold them fast, away from you they fly!'

Stef's simple four-part setting is designed to be learnt quickly and easily, and is very suitable for singers who learn by ear. Its memorable, intuitive harmonies enable an economical learning process, with minimal note bashing.