Prince's air (Scott? Playford?) info pls

Subject: Prince's air (Scott? Playford?) info pls
From: GUEST,Lutenist
Date: 04 Jul 03 - 03:23 PM

I am an English lutenist in possession of some lovely Scottish (and English) tunes in the Balcarres lute book, c. 1700. One of them of Prince's Air, which I know neither as English or Scottish traditional. Any clues? Does Playford in 'The Division Violin', 1685, 'Apollo's Banquet', 1670, or 'Original Scotch-Tunes', 1700 and 1701 (none of which I own), have a tune of this name?

Subject: RE: Prince's air (Scott? Playford?) info pls
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Jul 03 - 03:40 PM

The title is practically a generic one. Can you give a stressed note code, or an ABC of the tune? The Balcarries lute MS is quite rare and there is very little in the line of schollarly account of it. I have most of the tunes from it, but in lute tablature, which I can't read.

Subject: RE: Prince's air (Scott? Playford?) info pls
From: GUEST,Lutenist
Date: 04 Jul 03 - 03:50 PM

I don't know what a stressed note code is! I could give the notes and note values, if that helps.

Subject: RE: Prince's air (Scott? Playford?) info pls
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Jul 03 - 04:02 PM

I find I do have "The Prices Air" in lute tablature from Balcarries, but can't read it. Give the notes and time, and I can convert to an ABC and displsy the tune in modern notation. From that I can make the stessed note code and compare with those in an extensive collection of 17th century tunes.

Subject: RE: Prince's air (Scott? Playford?) info pls
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 04 Jul 03 - 04:43 PM

I don't want to mislead your; this is s long shot. Many song and instrumental tunes were composed for private entertainments of some nobleman. As such they were somtines copied into a manuscript, but often weren't of sufficient popularity to justify publication and were never printed. There is no compendium of unpublished tunes, so the


probabliilty is that I won't be able to identify the tune.

Have you learned "Hallow my Fancy"? This tune was "lost" until I found it in the Balcarries MS. The song for it, from Bishop Percy's folio MS (otherwise unknown), is given in the Scarce Songs 2 file at www.erols.com/olsonw. Thanks to a Scottish lutenist, the tune is also given there in modern music notation.

   
I suspect that the Balcarries Ms has received little attention because of the fact that it is primarily Scots tunes in a MS that's not in Scotland (John Rylands Library, Manchester).

I heard about a month ago (Memorial Day to be exact) that a woman expert on old music, living near me, had a complete set of the tunes in the Balcarries MS, but I foolishly forgot to ask her if they were translated into modern notation, or were in the original lute notation.

What source are you working from, Darsie's selection in tablature?

Subject: RE: Prince's air (Scott? Playford?) info pls
From: GUEST,Lutenist
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 03:24 PM

Yes, I am working from Darsie's selection. I think Balcarres MS is neglected because lutenists, usually classically trained, are not often too interested in trad. material on the one hand, and on the other, folkies aren't too interested in the lute and I've never met a guitarist who can read lute tab. A shame.

Subject: RE: Prince's air (Scott? Playford?) info pls
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 04:42 PM

We may have to wait a bit. One of the co-editors of EASMES has the
contents of the Balcarries MS, but it's not yet been added to the
enormous collection at:

EASMES

There is no "Princes Air" listed there (but there are several other "Prince's xxx").

Subject: RE: Prince's air (Scott? Playford?) info pls
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 06:32 PM

This crazy digital world. Someone changed from EASMES in the URL above to Easmes, and the link above collapsed.

Let's try the new URL with the new lower case letters

Easmes

Subject: RE: Prince's air (Scott? Playford?) info pls
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 14 Jul 03 - 01:16 AM

That wrong URL was entirely my fault.

The situation is complicated. A pulication of the complete MS is being pursued, but some of the contents of the Balcarries MS haven't yet been translated into modern tablature.