Oldest European Folk Song

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: GUEST,ljc--cookie gone.
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 07:31 PM

Song of Solomon

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 07:18 PM

http://www.webster.sk.ca/greenwich/evidence.htm

ljc

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Don Firth
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 06:15 PM

It's going to be a bit hard to pin this one down. The first manuscript ever found that contained an anywhere near understandable system for writing music came from sometime in the mid-eleventh century. Lots of chants and liturgical music were extant, of course. The trouvères and troubadours were roaming all over Europe about that time. Fascinating history, really—all tied up with monasteries, Latin scholars, Roman poetry, horny young monks, and Viking raids. Many scholars maintain that some of the older traditional ballads and secular songs were put together by wandering troubadours and minstrels, but most of the ones that survived did so through oral transmission. When you can find many of the older folk ballads in England, France, Germany, and Scandinavia that tell the same stories and have the same verse structure, it tends to support the troubadour / minstrel authorship theory.

The Greeks and the Romans had music, of course (instruments survived, but no written music as far as I've ever heard) and lots and lots of poetry. It's pretty certain that much if not all poetry was intoned, chanted, or sung, usually to the accompaniment of a lyre or similar instrument. I've heard that many Greek scholars and music historians maintain that portions of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and other epic poetry were recited or chanted to the accompaniment of a lyre or harp.

I think the oldest European song was probably sung by some anonymous Neanderthal.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Tweed
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 06:11 PM

Oh, what will you leave your brother, Lord Randal my son?
Oh, what will you leave your brother, my handsome young man?
My horse and the saddle, mother, make my bed soon,
For I'm sick to my heart and I fain would lie down.

Thanks Uncle Dave. I found "Lord Randall" in the digitrad but I suspect that mebbe it's from a more modern timezone than what I'm thinking of because of the reference to saddles. I believe horses and saddles came into use after the Romans took over, but could be wrong there. Neat song though and I'd hazard a guess that it might have inspired a well known Dylan number.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 05:50 PM

"Sumer is icumen in" is Old English, is it not? Certainly not pre-Roman invasion, in that form, but who knows what its antecedents were?

The oldest-rooted one I happen to be aware of is "Lord Randal, My Son", which I understand goes WAY back, and through MANY countries.

And how about the golden-ball songs, whose descendant I know as "Slack your rope, hangs-a-man". I've been told that goes WAY back, and widespread too.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Tweed
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 05:31 PM

Well, the thing is Mz.Sorchy, that I was thinkin' about was why do other more ancient cultures still have old songs and ways somewhat preserved and the traditions held by the Northern European tribes seems to have been completely crushed and lost. Hebrews were able to record their works via the written word and Native Americans seemingly have passed it down from generation to generation from their beginnings, but white folks' stuff seems to begin somewhere in the Middle Ages and everything prior to the Christianization of those tribes and clans seems to be gone. I thought maybe someone here who is schooled in this sort of thing properly would know of something that might have slipped through the cracks and been preserved. Or could it possibly be that our (mine anyhow) ancestors were so barbaric and savage that there were no songs to preserve?

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Sorcha
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 05:03 PM

There are Hebrew chants if you want to consider them Euro.

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Tweed
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 04:52 PM

Before all that,Amergin. Is there anything that remains other than Beowulf and some of the Norse verses that managed to escape the bishops and monks?

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Amergin
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 04:22 PM

well there was no england til the angles and the saxons came.....

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Tweed
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 04:17 PM

How old is that one MMario? Does it pre-date the Roman invasion?

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest European Folk Song
From: MMario
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 02:43 PM

I believe the oldest English (secular) song is suppossed to be "Sumer is acumin in" - I don't know about the rest of Europe. Suppossedly there are some older songs with what are suppossed to be musical directions in the mid-east

Subject: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Tweed
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 02:12 PM

Anybody know what would be the oldest European-descended song(s)? Are there any that pre-date the Roman Conquest or even the Holy Roman conquest and still sung? Just wondering as it occurred to me that there seems to be very little left of beginnings of this particular tribe of humans, other than cookin' out in the backyard and I think we got that from the Mongols;~)