4 Scottish Songs (c. 1545)

for 4 voices or instruments.

Although music flourished in Scotland during much of the 16th century, virtually no secular music has survived in contempory sources. This is due partly to the late arrival of music printing in that country - the first printed book of secular music was the 1662 edition of John Forbes´ Cantus, Songs and Fancies - but also to the influence of the Reformed Church, which regarded all secular part-songs as “prophaine sanges”. These were proper only if provided with new moralised texts “for avoyding of sinne and harlotrie”. Strictures against dancing were equally Draconian.
Fortunately, a number of 16th-century songs, and several instrumental pieces survive in a handful of 17th-century manuscripts. Most of these contain melodies only, but the additions to the set of Thomas Wode´s part books (after 1606 and c. 1620), and the Robert Taitt manuscript (1676 and later), include music in four parts.
Greater problems exist with regard to the verbal texts. The language of 16th-century Scotland was Scots, not merely a corrupt version of English as is frequently believed, but a distinct language with the same Anglo-Saxon origins as 16th-century English. After the Scottish Court moved to London in 1603, however, the standard language to be found in song texts is English.
Of the four songs included here, all from around the 1540s, Scots text appear in the Bannatyne manuscript of 1568, for Depairte, depairte, How suld my febill body fure, and the first four stanzas of O lusty May; Wo worth the tyme and the final stanza of O lusty May appear in versions which preserve mere vestiges of their original language. For this performing edition, where only 17th-century texts exist, these have been converted to the Scots tongue of the 16th-century; alongside these are included later 17th-century English texts, with considerable use of conflation to approximate as closely as possible to the original meaning. No English text is available for Depairte, depairte, apart from its initial stanza - here the Scots has been converted to later English.
The pronunciation of the older Scots tongue is thought to have had as many regional variations as exist in Scotland today. It is recommended to regard it not as curiously spelled English, but as a totally distinct language, with a guttural approach as in German and Dutch.
The letters quh have been replaced with wh; an apostrophe indicates the necessary elision of the letter i, mainly in certain plurals and verbs with the characteristic Scots ending -is.
The main source for this edition is the Robert Taitt manuscript, housed in the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library of the University of California in Los Angeles, all other available sources having been consulted. Note values have been halved throughout, editorial accidentals appearing above the notes to which they apply. The occasional consecutive fifths and octaves have not been altered. The underlay of texts in 17th-century sources is extremely erratic; this edition attempts to preserve the dance-like character of O lusty May and Depairte, depairte in this respect.
O lusty May, which differs significantly from the version published in The Melvill Book of Roundels, is one of the very few joyful songs to survive from 16th-century Scotland, the others being more characteristically sombre. Wo worth the tyme exists with several different endings; How suld my febill body fure here preserves the quaint word-setting which was unsuccessfully altered in other manuscripts. The latter is a setting of a poem by Alexander Scott, the finest exponent of amorous verse in Scotland before Robert Burns (with the music possibly by the poet himself), as also in Depairte, depairte, the melody of which appears as Gaillarde d´Escosse in the Phalèse dance collections of 1571 and 1583.

Produkt-ID: LPM-EML180

Lieferbar in 3-5 Werktagen

4,60 EUR

inkl. 7% MwSt.
St

Wir nutzen Cookies auf unserer Website um diese laufend für Sie zu verbessern. Mehr erfahren