|
|
Track Description of the CD
|
|
Track Title
|
Track Number
|
Running Time
|
| Belle Qui Tiens Ma Vie |
1
|
1' 57 secs
|
| My Dancing Day |
2
|
1' 58 secs
|
| Since First I Saw Your Face |
3
|
2' 55 secs
|
| La Volta |
4
|
1' 39 secs
|
| Tallis' Canon |
5
|
1' 51 secs
|
| Putta Nera Ballo Furlano |
6
|
2' 17 secs
|
| Benjamin Bowmaneer |
7
|
3' 00 secs
|
| April is in My Mistress' Face |
8
|
1' 21 secs
|
| Le Mois de Mai |
9
|
2' 15 secs
|
| Sumer is Icumen In |
10
|
2' 02 secs
|
| Auszug |
11
|
2' 25 secs
|
| Serving Girl's Holiday |
12
|
3' 17 secs
|
| The Earle of Salisbury |
13
|
2' 58 secs
|
| Betsy Bell and Mary Grey |
14
|
2' 23 secs
|
| Nobilis, Humilis |
15
|
2' 55 secs
|
| Angelus ad Virginem |
16
|
1' 51 secs
|
| A Gallery Carol |
17
|
1' 22 secs
|
| Es ist Ein' Ros |
18
|
2' 16 secs
|
| Shepherds Arise |
19
|
3' 36 secs
|
| The Boar's Head Carol |
20
|
2' 35 secs
|
| Past Three o' Clock |
21
|
2' 07 secs
|
|
Track Notes and Sound Clips
|
1 Belle Qui Tiens Ma Vie
Soprano crumhorn, violin, alto recorder, bass cornamuse, vocals
A pavane tune from Orchésographie, a collection of dances published in 1588 by the French cleric Thoinot
Arbeau, here played and sung in its original harmonisation. The French words are a love song. |
Sound Clip
|
2 My Dancing Day
Soprano, alto, tenor and bass recorders
A recorder quartet version of an early folk carol comparing Christ's life to a dance. |
Sound Clip
|
3 Since First I Saw
Your Face
Soprano, alto, tenor and bass recorders, vocals
Madrigals originated in Italy during the renaissance and became hugely popular all over Europe in the 16th Century.
This delightful English madrigal was written by Thomas Ford in 1607. |
Sound Clip
|
4 La Volta
Soprano, alto and tenor recorders, violin
This lively Italian dance scandalised the English clergy because it sometimes resulted in feminine ankles being
revealed! A famous painting shows Queen Elizabeth I dancing La Volta with her favourite, the Earl of Essex. This
is one of several tunes for the dance by Michael Praetorius (1571-1621). |
Sound Clip
|
5 Tallis' Canon
Thomas Tallis (1505-1585) was organist at the Chapel Royal in London during the reigns of both Henry VIII and Elizabeth
I. He was a composer of immense talent. This tune from around 1567 is perhaps his most well-known piece, though
the words we sing here were not added until 1692. More than three centuries later, the English composer Ralph Vaughan
Williams used another of Tallis' compositions as the basis for his haunting Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
(1909). |
Sound Clip
|
6 Putta Nera Ballo Furlano
Soprano crumhorn, alto and bass cornamuse, alto recorder, bodhran
This dance tune, by the Flemish composer Pierre Phalèse, was published in 1583. |
Sound Clip
|
7 Benjamin Bowmaneer
Soprano recorder, dulcimer, renaissance long drum, vocals
This early comic song from the Yorkshire Dales in England is about a tailor who sallies forth to war armed only
with scissors and pins.... |
Sound Clip
|
8 April is in My
Mistress' Face
Like Since First I Saw Your Face, this is a madrigal, composed by Thomas Morley in 1594 and it has the distinction
of being the first to be written in English - previously it was the fashion to write the words in Italian. |
Sound Clip
|
9 Le Mois de Mai
Soprano, alto and tenor recorders ...................................... .A delightful
traditional French tune. |
Sound Clip
|
10 Sumer is Icumen In
Plucked psaltery, vocals
Known to Chaucer, this well-loved round from 1240 is one of the earliest in existence, sung here in its original
Middle English. The original music can still be seen in the British Museum in London. |
Sound Clip
|
11 Auszug
Soprano crumhorn, garkleinflötlein, alto cornamuse, rebec, timbrel
Michael Praetorius composed Terpsichore, his hugely popular suite of dance tunes, in 1612. This one is the
exit dance. |
Sound Clip
|
12 Serving Girl's Holiday
Dulcimer, alto recorder, vocals
This song, about the hard life of a serving girl centuries ago, is based on Orientis Partibus, a twelfth
century tune from Beauvais in France. |
Sound Clip
|
13 The Earle of Salisbury
Soprano, alto, tenor and bass recorders
A stately pavane tune from one of the sixteenth century's most prolific composers, William Byrd (1543-1623). Halfway
through, as was common practice, it turns into a lively galliard. At this point the dance floor would be left to
the younger and fitter dancers to show off their agility. |
Sound Clip
|
14 Betsy Bell and Mary
Grey
Vocals: Ruth Guina and Jill Sutcliffe
The true story of two friends who lived near Glasgow, Scotland, during the Great Plague which swept across the
British Isles in the 1660s. Leaving the city to escape the disease, they made a shelter ("bower") in
a riverbank and their servant brought daily food and clothes. Tragically, he brought the plague as well. With the
other victims, they were buried together in the plague pits of Stronach Haugh near the city. |
Sound Clip
|
15 Nobilis, Humilis
Plucked psaltery, alto and tenor recorders, vocals
An eerie twelfth century gymel (tune in two parts) in praise of St Magnus, murdered in the Orkney Islands
north of Scotland by his cousin Haakon in 1116. It was written in Latin by the monks of Kirkwall. |
Sound Clip
|
16 Angelus ad Virginem
Soprano crumhorn, garkleinflötlein, plucked psaltery, rebec, bodhran
Chaucer mentions this lively carol from 1250 in his Milleres Tale, with Nicholas, his Clerk of Oxenford,
accompanying it, as we do here - on the "gay sautrye". |
Sound Clip
|
17 A Gallery Carol
A chance discovery by the Reverend Darwall in a church-gallery book in Dorset, England, uncovered this beautiful
untitled carol, sung here in its four parts. |
Sound Clip
|
18 Es ist Ein' Ros
Soprano, alto, tenor and bass recorders, vocals
This is Praetorius' beautiful arrangement, published in Musae Sioniae in 1609, of a fifteenth century Christmas
carol, sung here in its original German. |
Sound Clip
|
19 Shepherds Arise
Solo vocals: Ruth Guina
This little known and beautiful carol was passed down through generations of the Copper family of Rottingdean,
Sussex, England. Although its origin is unknown, the vocal power of the carol is a testament to the musical talent
of its anonymous rustic composer. |
Sound Clip
|
20 The Boar's Head Carol
Soprano crumhorn, bass cornamuse, violin, timbrel, vocals
First published by Wynkyn de Worde, an apprentice of William Caxton, in his 1521 collection Christmas Carolles,
when Henry VIII was thirty years old. Undoubtedly sung by the music-loving king and his court, it is a "macaronic"
carol, meaning a song sung in two languages - here English and Latin - and it has been sung every Christmas at
Queen's College, Oxford, since the 16th Century. The Latin chorus translates as "The (boar's) head I bring,
giving praise to God". |
Sound Clip
|
21 Past Three o' Clock
Garkleinflötlein, soprano and alto recorders, plucked psaltery, morris bells
We end with another Christmas carol, this one from Chappell's nineteenth century collection Popular Music of
the Olden Time. The tune is much older. |
Sound Clip
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
