Oldest European Folk Song

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: toadfrog
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 11:56 PM

Tweed: Golly. I don't know what Malcom is saying, but that is an extremely romantic and one sided view of the Middle Ages. That is a time for which there are very few written records, and virtually none which relate to the survival of oral tradition. Because that did not come up until people took an interest in that, which was pretty late. And there are people who say things like that about the Middle Ages. Mostly the people who say things like that have axes to grind and do not know a whole lot.

Even less do we know how much of Inuit or Native American cultures is "handed down" from a long time in the past. It is quite possible for an oral culture to change beyond all recognition within two generations. Anthropoligists say that's just about how long it takes two offshoots of the same Apache tribe to become completely incomprehensible to one another.

It is just plain wrong to say that Western Europe's "savage past was completely obliterated," because there is evidence that this is not so, but even more because the kind of evidence you could base such a sweeping assertion on just does not exist -- could not exist.

There is also something of a failure of imagination here. You are unable to believe that the past was different, or that people in the middle ages might not have cared about the stuff that interests you. In say, 1000 a.d. it required an enormous effort to preserve information. People did not make that effort unless there was extreme need. Such as who had a right to own what property, or what was the will of God. The monks of the middle ages were not "just like any learned person of today." This is true, not only because their ideas were drastically different, but also because their resources were scarce. To write that paragraph you just inserted in the thread would have required the efforts of a specially trained scribe -- one man in a hundred, perhaps -- over a period of several weeks, and the efforts of many, many peasants, cooks and the like, to feed that scribe. And maybe to protect him, too, for those were extremely violent times. It was not only for "primitive beliefs" that people got killed. Those are the gut facts about the Middle Ages you have to understand before you are in a position to form an opinion on anything else about those times.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Tweed
Date: 20 Aug 02 - 12:28 AM

Dear Toadie,
Please pardon my overactive imagination. I reckon there were no scribes of that time who wrote anything down without embellishing it with extravagent penmanship and picture stories in the sidelines. Is that correct? None at all right? How about going back a little farther than 1000 years? What was going on 1500 or 1600 years ago? Were there no educated people from Rome who might have kept diaries or logbooks of their travels? And why the hell do some people get so uptight at the mere mention of such things? I'm just wondering here, I ain't lookin' to be flayed alive or to be set on fire for just wondering about it. Take it easy Bub. It ain't no big deal.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: katlaughing
Date: 20 Aug 02 - 04:00 AM

Crane Driver...I love your theory, too! Pots! Le's hear more pots!

Anyone know anyone who has access to the depths of the Vatican library? If there IS any evidence, as Tweed posits, that would be a likely repository. I've heard rumours, for years, that therein lies many, many treasures with no hope of public exposure.

kat

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: GUEST,Gurney
Date: 20 Aug 02 - 07:34 AM

What an ants nest this turned out to be! Another thought. As the thread specifies FOLK song, how can you tell at this distance whether it was written or performed by a troubador or minstrel, or other professional, and is so automatically a pop song? Just being miscievous. Wassail.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: GUEST,Davetnova
Date: 20 Aug 02 - 08:07 AM

Didn't St Patrick make references to the Irish music of that time something along the lines that you could enjoy music but must be careful not be seduced by the Fairy magic. There may have been some supression by the Christians as this early music was viewed as somewhat magical.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: GUEST,fretless, at work
Date: 20 Aug 02 - 11:58 AM

There are ancient Greek hymns inscribed, with musical notation, on the south wall of the Athenian Treasury in the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi. The building is late 6th/early 5th century BC; the inscriptions Hellenistic. Here's a site that claims to offer the music in real player and midi: http://www.oeaw.ac.at/kal/agm/. The inscription at Delphi is, I think, the earliest European music notation. Do anonymous religious hymns count as folk music? If so, then the Greeks at Delphi probably get to claim Tweed's prize. There are earlier music notations from the Middle East, but Tweed was asking for a European folk song.

Homer's Iliad and Odyssey are earlier, and they were chanted, but the music hasn't survived.

The great harps from the Royal Cemeteries at Ur (3rd millennium BC) are decorated with panels depicting folk tales. Does that mean they were used for folk music? But, again, that's not Europe.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 20 Aug 02 - 12:26 PM

The original question was about the oldest (European) song still sung.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 21 Aug 02 - 10:32 AM

To get back to the original quesion, "Anybody know the oldest European-descended music still sung," I have a couple of nominees.

Before I open the envelopes, however, let me point out that no one is ever going to agree on the exact age of something so old. Therefore, no one will know what's the oldest.

The nominees are: 1. Sumer is i-cumen in. Much discussed already. 2. "The Friendly Beasts." The Sing-out book says the music is German, 12th Century. 3. The Cantigas de Santa Maria, ordered collected by Alfonso the Wise of Spain in the 1200's.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 21 Aug 02 - 06:14 PM

not european, though supposedly one of the oldest songs still sung, is the Shadoof song of Egypt (shadoof being a water irrigation device) so that would make it a work song. I dont know about the greeks but somewhere(I think it was on Yehudi Menuhins Music of Man series - which came out in the late 70's) there was a greek song that was performed that was at least 2000 years old. (maybe there was indeed a way of writing down notation)Petr

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: dorareever
Date: 21 Aug 02 - 07:31 PM

The oldest still performed today Italian folk song I know of is Donna Lombarda and I suppose it dates back to 900 AD.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Tweed
Date: 21 Aug 02 - 07:57 PM

Here's a link to pic on the page that Masato noted way up there at the top of this thread. It's got staffless notation, it's from the 8th century and claims to be the oldest musical manuscript. I reckon it could still be sung if you drew the lines in the right places.
*Clik to view*

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Letty
Date: 22 Aug 02 - 06:25 AM

Another candidate for the oldest European folk songs still sung today: the Carmina Burana. The manuscript is early 13th century, from Germany, and the songs (and little plays) in it are in (secular) Latin and German. They are part of the 12th-century goliard tradition: wandering poets, educated as clerics but not working as such. The subject material: love (but not the courtly type you get in the troubadour tradition, rather a more earthy type), drinking, gambling, the good life...

The music used today is usually Carl Orff's, who of course is a modern composer, but the lyrics are the same!

Finnish rune songs are said to back a long time (see http://virtual.finland.fi/finfo/english/folksing.html), some say even 2500 years, but of course there is no way to check this (the old literacy problem discussed above).

Letty

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Airto
Date: 22 Aug 02 - 07:05 AM

Some of the flamenco songs of southern Spain must surely go back a long way, but perhaps don't qualify as "European-descended".

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: dorareever
Date: 22 Aug 02 - 10:57 AM

The song has surely the melody and the subject dating to the 900 or 100 AD,but the words changed and there are many versions that surely were born much later.Because the song is in italian or in dialect,not in latin.The melody and the subject are earlier stuff.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: EBarnacle1
Date: 22 Aug 02 - 12:30 PM

There are at least 2 other candidates undiscussed. The Basques definitely lived in Europe. Many Romany, though not necessarily of European extraction (depending on your interpretation) sing the oral tradition of their people. Does that count? Or are we still saying that if someone who came to Europe that far back produced a song does it qualify as a European song?

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Nerd
Date: 22 Aug 02 - 12:38 PM

There are, I think, two problems with Tweed's initial assumptions. First, that no European folksong that has survived is very old. We just don't know. He disqualifies Lord Randall because it mentions saddles, but of course the paraphernalia mentioned in songs changes all the time. Matty Groves, as sung by Dillard Chandler, involves Lord Arnold pulling out a "special" and shooting his wife dead, though we know the song predates the use of handguns. Lord Randall, by the way, is related in theme to the Donna Lombarda song mentioned by Dorareever (both involve men poisoned by women through ingesting snakes or eels, and may both be descended from a truly ancient, pre-roman ancestor. There's no way to tell because the songs weren't written down.

The second problem is the claim that other cultures do have folksongs that have survived that long. Hebrew is mentioned as one category, but no ancient Hebrew song is a folksong carried by oral tradition, because no-one spoke Hebrew as a vernacular language for many years. All Hebrew songs that exist today are either new songs or very old songs re-learned from manuscripts whose origins as "folksongs" cannot be confirmed. Secondly, Inuit and other native American cultures are cited as examples. But there is no evidence whatsoever that any of the songs sung by any of these people is that old. There are only claims made by tribal elders that it has "always been sung." This is no better than the evidence given by Miss Tongue for "Three Danish Galleys."

Basically, Tweed, I think you proceed from a false assumption. Europeans are no better or worse endowed with ancient folksongs than most other peoples. For those who developed writing systems early (like middle eastern and Chinese) you'll find songs recorded in writing very early, and some of those are re-learned today, but that has nothing to do with barabrianism or civilization, just with the mechanics of history. None of these songs have been in continuous oral tradition, or at least there's no evidence that they have.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Don Firth
Date: 22 Aug 02 - 01:08 PM

Nerd, that pretty well sums it up. There is no real answer; the best one can do is speculate, and that sort of thing can go on endlessly. It is worthwhile asking the question though, because the effort to find an answer may turn up a lot of interesting stuff. But in the end (barring any new and amazing archeological finds), the answer will always remain beyond reach.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Tweed
Date: 22 Aug 02 - 07:14 PM

Don , I believe Mz.KatLaughing has devised a way to view these events in action *Here (the time machine thread)*

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 22 Aug 02 - 08:19 PM

There is no evidence that the music handed down by aboriginals, Inuit, or any group is "really, really" old. Among the pueblo people of the southwest, with whom I am familiar, there are traditions about previous dwelling sites back to about 900-1100 that have been documented in some cases (they mostly point to the work of the archaeologists for verification and to similarities in culture and artifacts, their older oral histories are very limited and uncertain). When did their chants originate? Not even they claim any certain knowledge here. They could have been re-written and set to new music many times. The basic ideas are handed down, but the custodians added their own embellishments.

Chinese musical instruments of great refinement have been found in tombs 2500 years old and older. I do not know of any tunes of the time that have been preserved. In a twist, music for these instruments has been written recently by Tan Dun and other composers.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: toadfrog
Date: 22 Aug 02 - 08:45 PM

Dichio and Nerd both said what I should have, and better. What set me off was the idea of a Christian "conquest" ruthlessly destroying old artifacts and cultures, and making the "West" essentially different from everybody else, who retained their robust musical roots from earliest antiquity. That just didn't happen.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: GUEST,Lucius
Date: 22 Aug 02 - 09:17 PM

If Europe looks to Greece as the boilerplate for its civilization, then the answer would have to be "Anthem to the Sun". Sorry, but I don't know the ancient Greek title, but it is not the Greatful Dead tune, I swear.

If you look to older European traditions, I guess that you'd have to consider un-notated pagan grunts, much in the style and spirit of tunes like "Louie-Louie".

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Tweed
Date: 23 Aug 02 - 07:03 AM

I think the Church had a hand at altering and/or destroying anything that was non-Christian as they gained the spiritual foothold over the "heathens". Was it not the custom to sell real estate in heaven to folks on death's bed in exchange for their earthly holdings? What about the flaggellists who marched around beating themselves to gain entry to the pearly gates? Spanish Inquisition? Jacques DeMolay and the Templars burned alive and slaughtered? Childrens Crusade? The Church had an enormous impact on Northern and Western European culture and I don't think I'd be far off in suggesting that the people's songs were affected along with anything else they'd managed to invent to amuse themselves with that was not Doctrine. Correct me if I'm way off base, but I don't see how you will be able to.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Tweed
Date: 01 Dec 02 - 11:04 AM

Well, I might have found it! Possibly the oldest European Folk Song still sung today. It's from a Saami website and is a wav file of the old way of singing north of the Arctic Circle.
Traditional Jojkt song (WAV file)

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Santa
Date: 01 Dec 02 - 11:37 AM

There seems to be a common assumption here, that pagan music and song were just a series of grunts.

Whatever else we do or don't know, the languages of pre-Christian peoples were every bit as rich and expressive as those that have followed. The arrogance and self-importance of the religious follows us everywhere.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Tweed
Date: 01 Dec 02 - 11:54 AM

Here's a page with a little more info on the Saami people and their music. Seems like if there was any music that the Churchy people didn't understand it got labeled "Devil's Music", worldwide. Glad some of it made it through the blight.
More on Saami (Lapps) Music here.

I hesitate now to use the word "Lapplanders" to describe these folks as I learned today that it is a derogatory term meaning "People with Patches on their Clothes", given by the early missionaries and soldiers.

Tweed

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Allan C.
Date: 01 Dec 02 - 12:34 PM

I believe there may be some argument for "Hangman" as being a candidate for the title. Variants of it have been documented throughout Europe, dating back many centuries.

I cannot attest to the current popularity of another song I know, but it seems to go back quite a way (forgive any spelling errors):

Flevit Lepus

Flevit lepus parvalus
Clamens altis vocibus
Quid fecci hominibus
Quod me secunter canibus? (repeat X2)

Roughly translated:

The Little Rabbit

The poor little rabbit
Exclaims in a loud voice
Why makes men
Always chase me with dogs? (or sticks, depending upon translator)

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Cluin
Date: 01 Dec 02 - 01:39 PM

How about "Young MacDonald just got a farm"?

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 01 Dec 02 - 02:37 PM

Here is a summary, for my own little brain. Comment and argument welcome.
We have poems from the ancient Chinese, the Middle Eastern peoples, Egyptians, etc. and their musical instruments from tombs, at least back to 2500 BC. The complexity of the Chinese instruments found in tombs indicates an advanced musical culture before 2000 BC. But are these songs still sung? No, certainly not to the ancient tunes. We have Greek and Roman poetry, and literary indication that some of it was sung, but the notations are unknown.

We have Christian liturgical music from about 900 AD on, and ancient music groups make a reasonable job of interpreting the directions and early attempts at notation. Much of this can be considered folk, since the authors are unknown. The earliest dated and author-identified European music is from the 1100-1200 AD period, work by Hildegard von Bingen and Leonin (and possibly others in the Iberian area, studies in progress). Some preserved liturgical chant is a little older, but the chanting would not count as music in the sense we are looking for here.
Peoples of the Ukraine and Georgia also may have liturgical music verifiable to the Middle Ages.
Much of what we know of old Hebrew music is from the Sephardic Jews, who were expelled along with the Islamic people from the Iberian Peninsula by Christians, the last gasp in the 1490s. Much interesting music, but is there anything verifiable before about 1200?

North American pueblo culture goes back to at least 1000 AD; material in some of the chants may be this old, but studies show that there have been shifts in belief and therefore in chants.
We have musical instruments from pre-Christian Central and South America. Several groups, including some native, play these instruments but the music played probably doesn't go back more than a few hundred years at most.
Hindu India, because of the nature of their social and religious beliefs, has been called by some anthropologists the only surviving stone age culture, but I can't comment on the antiquity of any of their songs- ignorance complete here. Change undoubtedly occurred here as well, one only has to look at the Mogul and other influences.

The little animal story brought up by Allen C. (often with a moral) is an example of a whole genre of folk tale that undoubtedly is old, but tunes and meters have changed with time and transmission.

Folk music, I think by definition, changes through time. I would not expect any song to persist unchanged over about 1000 years. Music may persist but transferred to new songs, poems are re-written to fit a situation or the nature of the singer. The 1000 year limit is pretty well verified by the music for which we have data. This is liturgical music. Secular music cannot be verified beyond the 13th century.

By the way, when was the tune attached to the Middle English "Sumer is icumen in"??

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 01 Dec 02 - 02:50 PM

Just answered my question. The music is as old as the poem, ca. 1260. Sumer manuscript

What were the other musical pieces (French liturgical) in the Harley Ms? (Probably all published elsewhere)

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: greg stephens
Date: 01 Dec 02 - 04:55 PM

The plasterers working on the walls in eg Pompeii would be singing at their work. The vibrations caused in the trowel are recorded in minute markings in the plaster, exactly like a gramophone record. Play them back with a trowel with attached horn. Easy. Judging by the pictures on the walls, they will probably turn out to be songs of the "Good Ship Venus" type.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 01 Dec 02 - 07:58 PM

The Hilliard Ensemble has put a number of Medieval songs including "Sumer..." on cd, Harmonia Mundi HMC 1154, from "the oldest surviving sources in England." Some interesting listening here. Sumer is a icumen in

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 02 Dec 02 - 03:18 AM

Alan C - The crying rabbit is a song printed in older German student song books of the 19th century. It is a translation of a German child song; all kinds of songs were translated by the students into Latin and Greek because of the exercise in classical languages - somtimes very funny. This usage started in the late 18th century and stopped in the 19th century when the use of Latin as official academic language was abandoned.
On the other side, the academic hymn "Gaudeamus igitur" is a genuine Latin song, going back to the 13/14th century in Paris. It had some bawdy verses included we are told; its final hymnal form it got at the University of Halle, Saxony, at the end of the 18th century, by the late Mag. Kindleben. Maybe it is not the oldest European song, but certainly the oldest one still sung regularly. I do it at least twice a year or more at alumni meetings.

Wilfried

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Allan C.
Date: 02 Dec 02 - 08:04 AM

Thanks, Wilfried! It is learning stuff like this that keeps me coming back to the Mudcat.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Declan
Date: 02 Dec 02 - 08:11 AM

Orinoco Flow by Enya. Well it is Celtic Music isn't it.

Back to the learned discussion ...

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Dec 02 - 08:20 AM

At times this is an interesting thread. However, it has one major flaw, Tweed is woefully ignorant on a number of subjects abd an arguement based on ignorance is a useless one.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Tweed
Date: 02 Dec 02 - 01:58 PM

Dammit GUEST, when yore right, yore right and I sure needed that. Love you baby.

P.S. (pssst, hey also you need to spell "and" wif a "n" and not a "b" but I ain't gonna tell nobody you messed up there. I'll cover for ye, never fret;~)
Yerz,Tweed

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Nerd
Date: 02 Dec 02 - 02:06 PM

Well, Tweed is enthusiastic, perhaps beyond what the evidence supports. The fact is, this has been a problem with a lot of professional folklorists, too, especially early in the discipline. The ideas that "ring around the rosie" date from the Black Death or another plague, or that "John Barleycorn" dates back to pagan times, etc, are all part of the folklore enthusiast's love of old things. Folklorists want so badly for things to be old, that we sometimes have been uncritical, and have accepted whatever explanation allows us to claim the oldest date for an item.

This is intensified when people have something to prove about their culture, eg., when a culture has held minority status in a larger nation. Then the "we must prove that our culture is more ancient and deserving than that of our oppresors" motivation joins the "we just love old stuff" motivation. I suspect this is behind the (apparently) accepted date for the Georgian folksong Tweed mentions; Georgian scholars would have every reason to go for the oldest possible date during the Soviet period. It's also behind such folkloristic projects as the Kalevala; I was watching a National Geographic special where a Finnish scholar states "if it were not for the Kalevala, there would be no Finns anymore. We would all be speaking Swedish or Russian."

So my point is, Tweed may not always be right, but his longing for the old is part of my own love of folksong, too. Let's not be too mean, anonymous guest!

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Dec 02 - 02:45 PM

I was not intending to be mean. Simply to point out that opinions defined by lack of knowledge are of dubious value. I think that we need to be wary of supporting biases with faulty information. I can see that Tweed is enthusiastic, but knowledge requires more.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Tweed
Date: 02 Dec 02 - 07:12 PM

Hmmm....a nerd and a nameless GUEST discussing the nicest way to call me an ignorant fool and then a fellow sends us off to a place so filled up with web spiders, crawlers and cookies I had to take the computer out in the back yard to hose the sonofabitch down. Flame on!

I'm sticking with the Sami people from the Arctic lands for the award of oldest European folk songs still sung. I don't give a shit what's written down or what the f*ck you've read, I can hear "old ways" in that singing. I hear hard work and living conditions that no one else would know how to survive in. I hear the agony of a parent looking for a lost child on a frozen lake. I hear a man's lament of how a religious people came to his land and told him he couldn't cross a river to hunt anymore and that he had to pay for the privelege of living in the land where his people had been for 10,000 years already. Hey I am ignorant I guess, but I got ears to hear with anyhow! What do you learned people hear in the little rabbit song?
Yerz,
Tweed

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 02 Dec 02 - 08:06 PM

"Sumer Is Icumen In," words and music still together, dates from about 1260 according to the best authorities. Gaudeamus Igitur in original form supposedly dates to the same time. The words now sung to the latter are relatively new (18th century). Surely the English song is the oldest one still sung regularly, same words, same tune.   
An image of the original "Sumer..." is on the web (link Sumer Manuscript, above, Dec 01, 02, 2:50 pm). Is an image of the Gaudeamus..." Ms. available?

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: AKS
Date: 03 Dec 02 - 09:19 AM

The Sami singing style (rhythmic patterns, melodies, voicing) is indeed old and archaic, but the joikus (~ yoiku, the song) themselves aren't necessarily that old at all. The 'lyrics' - very scarce, if there are any at all - might only be a couple of lines in length, because the singing mostly is 'impromptu lilting on syllables that are not used in ordinary language'.
And notice that when a Lapp sings, s/he does not sing of, but uses the objective case in order to obtain ownership, ruling or deeper understanding of the issue (this feature can be found throughout the Finno-Ugric shamanistic singing tradition). Thus the singer would answer, if asked "what was that joiku about", e.g: "I sang my driving reindeer of tin plate (=skidoo)".

AKS

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 03 Dec 02 - 10:02 AM

The Apostle Paulus, in his first letter to the Corinthians, rejects a certain everyday philosophy: "Let us eat, drink, and be merry; tomorrow we will de dead".
This refers to a certain kind of Greek drinking songs called skolia (sing. skolion). The oldest one is preserved on a tombstone of the 1st century A.D., with tune.
Transliteration of the Greek text:
Hoson zês, phainou:
Mêden holôs syllypou.
Pros oligon esti to zên,
To telos ho chronos apaitei.
English translation:
As you are living, appear so;
Don't be dreary too much.
Life is only for short,
The end Time will bring.
The tune, though archaic, is easy to sing and not too merry.

Wilfried

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 03 Dec 02 - 12:14 PM

Unless both the melody and lyrics of a song have been notated, and you can accurately ascribe a date to them, there is no way of knowing how old it is. As I and others have said previously, probably the very act of notation has altered the song in some way. One has only got to look at the way that many collectors have "corrected" melodies because they didn't think untrained musicians "meant" to sing modal tunes or bowdlerised the lyrics because they offended their sense of decency.

Songs which have been handed down orally will probably have changed even more - I recently heard a group perform "Sally Free and Easy" and I think even Cyril Tawney would have had trouble recognising it - that's in less than half a century - just think what half a millenium would do !

If we listen to how much the style of "Art Songs" haa changed in the last 500 years, it's very unlikely that many of the folk songs in the current repertoire are older than a couple of humded years in the form that we sing them.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: pavane
Date: 03 Dec 02 - 12:47 PM

That is interesting, partly because Mrs Pavane dragged me for a DAY trip to Lapland on Sunday. (3.5 hours on the plane each way, 6 hours there...) We didn't get to hear any traditional song, but we were played some music that I didn't recognise by a trio in the restaurant.

Didn't have time to investigate though.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: pavane
Date: 03 Dec 02 - 12:49 PM

Oh yes, and I forgot, the Welsh have poetry dating back to the 6th Century A.D. I believe. Certainly before the English language existed.
Not sure if it was sung, though.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 03 Dec 02 - 10:44 PM

The "Cantigas de Santa Maria, 13th Century music manuscript of solo songs, contains 43 "profane cantigas." Cantigas
Some interesting information and illustrations here.
When I click on the link to the profane cantigas, I get "Attencion: La direccion pedida es incorrecta." I will investigate further. By profane, I presume they mean secular, but you never know!

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 03 Dec 02 - 10:50 PM

Much at the Cantigas site is not working, but the color illustrations are very interesting. Color illuminations showing musicians, instruments and singers are excellent.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: GUEST,Allan Terego
Date: 04 Dec 02 - 12:48 AM

I know this kind of give and take must be very difficult for Malcolm, and obviously the anonymous one also knows his traditional European Folklore, but Tweed's been a great addition to Mudcat so perhaps just go a bit easy. A lot of us are looking in here to LEARN because we don't know a lot about this specific topic.

Al

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Haruo
Date: 04 Dec 02 - 01:32 AM

Wilfried, what sort of notation is used for the tune on the 1st-century tombstone that you mentioned?

I know there is musical notation extant (and perhaps deciphered) from Sumer (the original Sumer, not the one that is icumen in); but I hadn't heard about notated skolia.

Haruo

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 04 Dec 02 - 02:25 AM

Haruo - I shall look for the book in which I found the transcription of this skolion into modern notation. It was a school book, and if I remember correctly the musical signs were not dots on lines, but figures giving the heights of the tones. I think a picture of the old tombstone was attached. I only copied the melody in modern notation some 40 years ago for my collection.
I hope to find it in the library of my old school; fortunately the librarian is a neighbour of mine.
More when I have found it.

Wilfried