Tune Req: Pre-1700 winter & Christmas tunes, pls

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Pre-1700 winter & Christmas tunes, pls
From: Monique
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 10:18 AM

Ah, thanks for the link, Artful Codger! I'd once downloaded the pdf and couldn't find it again at archives.org
The 5 carols on Ten Provençal Carols are carols # 29 (Lei pastourèu 1&2), 5, 50 and 56. I made a literal English translation to "La cambo me fai mau and "Touro louro louro" (Tura lura lura) on Mama Lisa's World Occitania page. You can also find "Pastres rintratz vòstrei tropèus" on Mudcat (original lyrics, singable translation and midi). It must go back to the 16th century or so.
Micoulau is still Micoulau (or Micolau in standardized Oc), Nicolas is the French for it.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Pre-1700 winter & Christmas tunes, pls
From: ollaimh
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 11:10 AM

don't forget the wexford carol. a simple but beautiful medody with either gaelic or english lyrics. it dates back to the seventh century. one of the oldest christmass carols

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Pre-1700 winter & Christmas tunes, pls
From: Stower
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 03:02 PM

ollaimh, do you have a reference for the dating of the Wexford Carol? Beautiful song. It was collected by WH Grattan Flood, who wasn't born until 1857. I've heard claims that this (and some other songs) 'go back to [insert century]', but without any reference to back up the claim. Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day is one such example that is claimed as that vague term 'mediaeval' (that covers 1,000 years!), but I can find no evidence either song goes back further than the 19th century. I'd be more than happy to be pointed towards the relevant dated mss.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Pre-1700 winter & Christmas tunes, pls
From: Monique
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 03:20 PM

Tous les bourgeois de Chartres 16th-France (score and mp3)
Voisins, d'où venait ce grand bruit? 15th- France (score and midi)
Chansons de Noël, mostly French carols but it's worth having a look (scores and midis)

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Pre-1700 winter & Christmas tunes, pls
From: Artful Codger
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 08:42 PM

If the Wexford carol you mean is the one starting "Good people all, this Christmastime" (aka. the Enniscorthy Christmas Carol), the text is largely derived, at some remove, from a black-letter ballad "All you who are to mirth inclin'd" (published by 1645). Grattan Flood collected the text and tune from a local singer, reworked the text, and submitted it to the editors of The Oxford Book of Carols, who reworked the text some more. The first four-and-a-half verses appear in Shawcross's Old Castleton Christmas Carols (1904).

The New Oxford Book of Carols contains a different version of the text, taken from The Wexford Carols (1982), in turn taken from a broadside published by the County Wexford Museum in Enniscorthy, as sung by Fr. Patrick Cummins c.1912.

But the important point, in regard to the original request, is the age of the tune, which remains a question. While it sounds "traditional", it can only be firmly dated to Flood's collection of the carol in 1912. Jack Devereux, who provided the melodies for The Wexford Carols, sang this text to the tune for "Ye sons of men" (#161 in the NOBoC).

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Pre-1700 winter & Christmas tunes, pls
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Oct 11 - 04:47 AM

Thank you so much, Artful Codger. The Wexford Carol's textual basis will be this ballad, then. To my ears, The Wexford Carol is an improvement but, as you rightly say, the evidence says the finished product is well outside of The Night Watch dates. We could work up an arrangement of the broadside, but we already have plenty of songs - it's tunes we're looking for (as stated in the original post).

Thanks all, once again. I didn't expect so many responses - and of such quality, too - to what I thought may be an esoteric request. This is Mudcat at its best!

Stower

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Pre-1700 winter & Christmas tunes, pls
From: Stower
Date: 12 Oct 11 - 04:50 AM

Sorry, that last post was me. Don't know where my cookie went.

Stower