You may not know it, but...

...you may be more familiar with early music than you think.

Season’s Greetings

The time of year the average person hears the most early music, perhaps unwittingly, is the Christmas season:

• “What Child Is This?” uses the tune of “Greensleeves.” (Actually, a lot of songs use the tune of “Greensleeves.”)
• The Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors in Coventry included a song about the slaughter of the innocents that you’ve probably heard (slightly modified) under the title “The Coventry Carol.”
• The tune of “The Friendly Beasts” is a (mind-numbingly wimpy) variant of a song from the medieval Feast of the Ass, “Orientis partibus.”
• In Renaissance France, the tune you know from “Ding Dong Merrily on High” was the dance tune “Bransle de l’official.”
• “Riu riu chiu” is a Spanish song from the sixteenth century often performed in the Christmas season, even in shopping mall canned music. You may have heard the Monkees sing it; we have yet to, alas. We’re told that they do it quite well.
• “O Come Emanuel” dates back to 15th century France, aside from the harmony added in the 19th century (and the lyrics being originally in Latin).
• “In Dulci Jubilo,” which you may know as “Good Christian Men Rejoice,” was set by, among others, Michael Praetorius. Praetorius also set “Es Ist Ein Ros’ Entsprungen,” which you may know by the English translation’s title, “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming.”

Speaking of religion, if you take a look at a hymnal, you’ll find sources of the lyrics and music listed after each hymn. Check how often you see Praetorius there. You may be surprised.

Period goes Pop

Early music has even occasionally surfaced in pop and rock recordings, sometimes even making it onto the charts:

• Back in 1967, a group called the Fifth Estate put out a cover of “Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead” from The Wizard of Oz, using a bourrée from Praetorius’s Terpsichore as a bridge. The single reached #11 on the charts.
• Mike Oldfield and recorder virtuoso Leslie Penning covered “Portsmouth” and “Argiers” from Playford’s Dancing Master. “Portsmouth” hit #3 on the UK singles chart. They also collaborated on a sprightly cover of “In Dulci Jubilo” that album liner notes for his Boxed set characterized as a “1975 Yuletide cheerful chartbuster.”
• Enigma’s stock in trade was dance music atop Gregorian chant, exemplified by their best known track, “Sadeness.”
• Jethro Tull recorded an instrumental version of Henry VIII’s paean to hanging with one’s buds, “Pastime with Good Company,” under the title “King Henry’s Madrigal.” Since the term “early music” commonly includes the Baroque, we’ll take the liberty of mentioning Tull’s cool jazz shuffle version of a Bach bourrée (from the Lute Suite #1 in E minor, though Tull transposes it to D).
• Richard the Lionhearted was captured on his way back from the Crusades, and he is said to have written the song “Ja Nun Hons Pris” while he was imprisoned. The lyrics refer to the sadness of being held captive, and perhaps more pointedly to how his many friends were stingy when it came to paying his ransom. If you’re a Brian Ferry fan, you may well have heard a version of the song on his Frantic album. (Curiously, at the time of this writing, essentially all the web pages Google finds when searching for "ja nun hons pris" are from reviews of Frantic and Brian Ferry/Roxy Music discographies.)
• Sister Soleil’s first album, Drown Me in You, includes an exotic setting of John Bennet’s madrigal “Weep, O Mine Eyes,” under the title “Weep.” The album title itself is from the madrigal’s lyrics. (Foolscap here: once when the band performed in Des Moines, I had a chance to talk very briefly to Stella Katsoudas, then head of the group, now performing solo under the name Stella Soleil. Turns out that she once sang with a madrigal group.)
  

Early Music on the Silver Screen

Here are just a couple of instances of early music in film:

• The Chronicle History Of King Henry The Fift With His Battell At Agincourt In France, the 1944 Laurence Olivier film version of Shakespeare's Henry V, features, reasonably enough, the Agincourt carol “Deo gracias Anglia.”
• Yo, Adrian! Bill Conti’s soundtrack for Rocky took inspiration from an Elizabethan fanfare for “Gonna Fly Now” and “Fanfare for Rocky.”

Modern Art Music

Various modern pieces are inspired by early music. For example:

• Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote several works based on music of the period that interests us, notably the “Fantasia on ‘Greensleeves’” and the gorgeous Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis.
• Julian Bream commissioned Benjamin Britten’s Nocturnal after John Dowland, a brilliant set of variations on Dowland’s “Come, Heavy Sleep” that saves the theme for the end.
• Peter Warlock’s Capriol Suite is an orchestral suite based on dances from Arbeau’s Orchesographie.
• Resphigi’s Ancient Airs and Dances for Lute are arrangements of Italian Renaissance lute pieces.
• Ravel’s “Pavan for a Dead Princess” alternates between a pavan and a more impressionistic section.

Elsewhere

Groups and performers in other genres have covered early music as well:

• Dead Can Dance recorded a very good performance of one of the saltarellos on British Library Additional Manuscript #29987.
• Richard Burmer's Mosaic album includes a version of “Tristan’s Lament” which is from the same manuscript as the aforementioned saltarello. (So few medieval instrumental dances are known to survive that Timothy J. McGee was able to publish a very good edition of all of them, including commentary and discussion of performance practice, in one very convenient spiral-bound volume that fits easily in the hand.)
• John Renbourn and the John Renbourn Group play a variety of early pieces, and sometimes Renbourn weaves them in as bridges in folk tunes. Check out their versions of some Susato pieces on the A Maid in Bedlam album, or of “Douce dame jolie” and “Belle qui tiens ma vie” on The Enchanted Garden.
• Banco de Gaia’s Farewell Ferengistan album includes a techno version of John Dowland’s “Lachrimae” (also known by its first words, “Flow my tears”) under the title “Flow My Dreams, The Android Wept” which also alludes to Philip K. Dick’s Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said.

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