The historic county of Sussex in southern England has a rich musical heritage that encompasses the genres of folk, classical and rock and popular music amongst others. With the unbroken survival of its indigenous music, Sussex was at the forefront of the English folk music revivals of the 19th and 20th centuries. Many classical composers have found inspiration in Sussex, and the county continues to have a thriving musical scene across the musical genres. In Sussex by the Sea, the county has its own unofficial anthem.
Perhaps the first known musical instrument from Sussex is the so-called 'Sussex horn', a variant of the Bronze Age Irish horn. Dating from around 900BC this instrument was found in the late 18th century at the bottom of a well in Battle.
Folk music
Traditional music
Of all the counties in England, it is Sussex that appears to have drawn the greatest attention from folk song collectors over a period of some 130 years. This was due to a flourishing tradition of folk dance, mummers plays (known in Sussex as Tipteers' or Tipteerers' plays) and folk song, but also in part because of the rural nature of the county in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and yet its relatively close proximity to London.
Passed on through oral tradition, many of Sussex's traditional songs may not have changed significantly for centuries, with their origins perhaps dating as far back as the time of the South Saxons. Writing in 1752, John Burton commented on the "sharp pitch" and "goatish noise" of the Sussexians, which William Henry Hudson thought still held true when writing nearly 150 years later.
In the Sussex tradition there is a strong vein of lyrical songs reflecting the life of the countryside and romance. There are also ballads, drinking songs and songs that capture the 'Silly Sussex' humour of the county.
Folk song collecting
Perhaps the earliest of collections was made by the Revd. John Broadwood in 1843, published as Old English Songs - as now sung by the Peasantry of the Weald of Surrey and Sussex. His niece, Lucy Broadwood, published the anthologies Sussex Songs, English County Songs and English Traditional Songs and Carols. Probably because of the presence of the Broadwoods in the area, most of the traditional Sussex music collected in the early days of the folk revival came from around Horsham. Classical musicians who also explored the Sussex repertoire include Percy Grainger and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Grainger was rather cavalier in his appropriation of the folk melodies he recorded from all over the world, including arrangements of old Sussex tunes such as The Merry King and the Sussex Mummers' Christmas Carol. (Mummers in Sussex dialect are known as Tipteers or Tipteerers). Singer, Henry Burstow, was known to have over 400 songs in his repertoire. Ralph Vaughan Williams' use of the tune of Our Captain Calls All Hands as sung by Harriett Verrall of Monks Gate, near Horsham, as a setting for John Bunyan’s To be a Pilgrim and George Butterworth’s arrangement of Folk Songs from Sussex. The tune used by Harriett Verrall was also used by Vaughan Williams in what subsequently became known as the Sussex Carol. Using early sound-recording equipment, Vaughan Williams was able to make actual recordings of some songs, including a 1907 version of The Trees They Do Grow High as sung by David Penfold, the landlord of the Plough Inn at Rusper.
Kate Lee, one of the founders of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, found James 'Brasser' Copper and his brother Thomas, the landlord of the Black Horse public house in Rottingdean. In the 1950s Brasser's son Jim, grandson, Bob and others were featured by the BBC and broadcast The Life of James Copper, honouring him with a front cover photo on the Radio Times and asked to sing in London's Royal Albert Hall. Another founder of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, William Henry Gill also collected and arranged folk song material from Sussex.
Sometimes song lyrics were recorded with some censorship, such as the Sussex Whistling Song and the Horn Fair song. Sung to the tune of Lillibullero and edited for its coarseness, the Sussex Whistling Song describes the Devil's dislike of the wife of a Sussex farmer in which the refrain was whistled. As is usual in Sussex lore, the Devil is depicted in a foolish light, in this case 'the wife' gets the better of him. In 1861 Mark Antony Lower wrote that "The effect, when continued by strong whistles of a group of lusty countrymen, is very striking, and cannot be adequately conveyed by description."