VERY Early Music - before 1550 CE

Subject: VERY Early Music - before 1550 CE
From: Dame Aranrhod
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 04:38 AM

While it's not the better-known SCA, I belong to a medieval recreation group. We recreate arts (as well as combat), including bardic offerings, and I am always interested in new works to perform. Thus, I need both words and music (I sing - relatively badly - and play bowed psaltery - a recent acquisition!). Our period covers from 1150 to 1550 CE and documentation of origin/date is required except for entertainment purposes, when a "period sound" is sufficient.

I seem to find places where I can retrieve words without music, or music without words, and never the twain meet. Plus, I need to store the music long enough to learn it!

I know a great majority of music from this period was sacred rather than "popular", and I think I'd have a hard time organizing a Gregorian chant choir.

If anyone can point me in a good direction (and please - no pay sites, I'm a student!) I would be grateful.

Aranrhod

Subject: RE: VERY Early Music - before 1550 CE
From: smallpiper
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 04:59 AM

You might find information or links to help you here

Subject: RE: VERY Early Music - before 1550 CE
From: Giac
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 05:12 AM

Here's the link again:

early music site

Subject: RE: VERY Early Music - before 1550 CE
From: Dame Aranrhod
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 07:35 AM

Thank you very much. Excuse me while I go look now.

Subject: RE: VERY Early Music - before 1550 CE
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 10:50 AM

First of all, whoever dreamed up these requirements may not have known what they were demanding. This is a tall order! Scholars in these early centuries didn't record the songs of the people very often, and when they did, they almost never recorded the melodies. If they did record the melodies, they are devilish hard to interpret.
Once interpreted, they may not sound like much.

Where do you live? Do you have access to a university library (preferably one connected to a conservatory or music) or a really huge public library? That would help.

How good are you with foreign languages? One idea is to look at motets. Motets were arrangements where a composer took approx. three folk songs and combined them. You could sing the songs one at a time. However, when I looked up motets on the net, most were in foreign languages.

Other possible keywords: Machaut, Cantiga, troubadour, trouvere, madrigal

If you want to pin the music down so as to learn it, you either need to make copies from a book or to buy music software so you can download the MIDI file. Better yet, persuade a fatter cat in the org to buy the music software.

Subject: RE: VERY Early Music - before 1550 CE
From: MMario
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 10:55 AM

yeesh! That cutoff at 1550 reduces the secular offerings available by a lot - you can't squeeze out another 50 years?

Try Greg Lindahl's pre-1600 ballad site as well.

Subject: RE: VERY Early Music - before 1550 CE
From: masato sakurai
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 11:09 AM

A highly recommended book is E.J. Dobon and F.Ll. Harrison's Medieval English Songs (Faber, 1979), which contains both words and music with detailed notes and commentaries. The 33 songs (and variants), however, are the ones up to 1400. Are they too early?

~Masato

Subject: RE: VERY Early Music - before 1550 CE
From: GUEST,richard
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 11:11 AM

Gregorian chant may not be too exciting but it dates from much earlier than 1550. If you don't mind religious music there is some great stuff out there - mainly choral - some of it is mind-blowingly beautiful and difficult - try Spem in Alium by Tallis - a 40 part motet! Also look out for William Byrd and William Cornysh. Look out for a group called the Tallis Scholars - the best early music group in the world. They also do some secular pieces.

Subject: RE: VERY Early Music - before 1550 CE
From: ponygirl
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 12:37 PM

There is much less secular music surviving in written sources, but there is some. There are also cases where the lines between the two blur somewhat, like the Cantigas de Santa Maria, and the Llibre Vermell de Montserrat, or "Sumer is icumen in" redone as "Perspice christicola." You will have to do some reconstruction and a lot of interpretation, and have the research to support THAT, as well. The good thing is that a lot of the folks who do early music well also take an interest in educating people about it, and are more than willing to talk to folks about the research they've done and why they choose to perform a piece the way they do. My favorite is Hesperus but there are others, too... good luck!

Subject: RE: VERY Early Music - before 1550 CE
From: ponygirl
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 12:37 PM

Hmm, it didn't like that link. The URL for Hesperus is www.hesperus.org

Subject: RE: VERY Early Music - before 1550 CE
From: Ditchdweller
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 02:12 PM

CE??? What the hell is that? Don't you mean AD?

Subject: RE: VERY Early Music - before 1550 CE
From: NicoleC
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 03:27 PM

CE = "Common Era" A universal acronym for the Christian "AD." (Anno Domini)

Subject: RE: VERY Early Music - before 1550 CE
From: GUEST,JohnB
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 03:42 PM

"An Anthology of English Medieval and Renaissance Vocal Music" by "Noah Greenberg" ISBN 0 393 00461 9 Pub. Norton Library 1968 has about the first third or so within your time frame. The other stuff fits and sounds right too, it's just a little later.
The same book was published earlier (1961 & 1963) as "An English Song Book" by "Doubleday / Anchor" no ISBN, a friend of mine picked it up for $2 Can.
Good Luck JohnB

Subject: RE: VERY Early Music - before 1550 CE
From: Hollowfox
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 04:35 PM

You might want to try the website for a radio show called Harmonia: http://www.indiana.edu/~harmonia (blue clicky monster didn't want to work). And if you live in the USA, you might want to see if a nearby university radio station gets the show. Or maybe you could listen to it on your computer.
I haven't got the time to look it up right now, but if your group gets really sticky about things being in period, your bowed psaltry might be too new. I seem to recall someone saying it was developed by the Germans to teach bowing technique in the ?18th? century. I'll see if I can track the information down later. And I won't tell on you if I see you perform.

Subject: RE: VERY Early Music - before 1550 CE
From: greg stephens
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 04:41 PM

Does CE really mean Common Era? I thought it meant Christian Era.`What's common about it?

Subject: RE: VERY Early Music - before 1550 CE
From: Burke
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 05:01 PM

I thought so too, but OED gives Common as the first use:
C.E., Common Era; occas., Christian Era.

Nicely ambiguious, take your pick. I think it's Common in being the dating system commonly in use. Useful also because in terms of the the birth of Christ it's generally thought late by 3-6 years.

Subject: RE: VERY Early Music - before 1550 CE
From: NicoleC
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 05:15 PM

It's common because most countries and cultures can or will use it as a dating system in the modern era, however, it started being called Common Era to be less biased towards Christianity while not making us all get new calendars. Sure, it's an arbitrary designation of dividing history. One might also argue that "AD" is also irrelevant in regard to Christianity, since it's off by 4 years anyway.

But it is more considerate, I suppose, if we are all going to try and use the same calendar system.

Subject: RE: VERY Early Music - before 1550 CE
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 05:57 PM

1150-1550 Common Era: is difficult. JohnB, the book by Greenberg has the LAST third and later of the interval.
Some excellent material in Catalan, Spanish by Jordi Saval and Hesperion XX.
A comparison of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana with some other attempts at this medieval text might present some interesting ideas.

John Wilbye, "The first set of English Madrigals, was pub. im 1598 but would have some earlier material: Wilbye Madrigals should be useful.

Also see R. Bell, ed., "Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England: Ancient Poems Ballads

"A Handful of Pleasant Delights" by Clement Robinson and others (1584) has material from the last part of your interval. Delights

Subject: RE: VERY Early Music - before 1550 CE
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 11:10 PM

St. Galgano was a 12th century Italian nobleman who renounced a life of violence after seeing a vision of Archangel Michael, and plunged his sword into a rock. This is apparently preserved at the ruined Cistercian Gothic abbey of San Galgano at Montesiepe, near Sienna.
Somehow this got involved with the legend of King Arthur, perhaps by the storytellers Geoffrey of Monmouth, Chretian de Troyes and others unknown, and eventually Thomas Mallory.
This brings these verses and these old tales into your period, although you will have to invent the music to accompany them. As pointed out by Leeneia in a post above, this was the usual practice with these stories. An interesting new twist to present to an audience.

The story is in the Times of London, report by Richard Owen, but unfortunately I don't have the date (very recent). The heading used in Canadian papers was "Was King Arthur really an Italian?" but I don't know how the story was headed in the Times. You should be able to run down the original article.