Category: Music

Mistress Afie asked if I would assist in getting music together for Birka, in partnership with Mistress Linette.

Well, it’s the Reign of Peace, and what’s better than a bunch of people singing for a processional?

This piece, Dona Nobis Pacem, is sometimes attributed to Italian composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, who died in 1594.

Below is a video of some lovely, normal people singing it in a round. This is more or less what it usually sounds like.

To help you learn the piece, Mistress Linette has created and provided these handy files to see and hear!

Dona Nobis Pacem single line in mp3 format. (To download, right click and “save as.)

Dona Nobis Pacem in round in mp3 format. (To download, right click and “save as.)

Dona Nobis Pacem Birka sheet music in pdf. Just click to open.

 

WHAT TO LEARN:
You are welcome to learn just the first line, and repeat it over and over – a task excellent for little littles perhaps – or you may learn the whole three-line phrase. =) (Trying to make it easy on everyone.)  Since it all fits together anyway, I promise that it will work! =)

We will meet to rehearse this piece at Birka 30 minutes before Court. We shall meet where the youth fighting took place during the day – in the large room “behind” the ballroom (pass the ballroom, go up the stairs, into the big room.)

Thank you all so much!!

– Aneleda

(I will be posting some other songs we adults and teens might do as well.)

 

The Leafy Greens & Mutton were a small, enthusiastic ensemble of folks who really like to sing, play and perform medieval music.

Coming together in the fall of 2004, LG&M was a nameless bunch of merrymakers – so merry that they took some mis-sung lyrics as their very name! By the spring of 2005, we were a real group – we even won the Period Musical Performance category at the Society for Creative Anachronism’s (SCA) Festival of Northern Lights Arts & Sciences Challenge. (You can see our fancy award for yourself if you wish!) Since then we’ve had public concerts at the Bangor Mall, Church of Universal Fellowship events in Orono, the Bangor Public Library, and enjoy the occasonal appearance at the Orono Community Theatre Arts Cafe.

As members of the SCA, we made every effort to capture the joy and sound of medieval music, from dance tunes to ballads, focusing on music written during (or about) the times from around 1000 to 1650 AD. LG&M members host workshops on the bardic arts, encourage singing and music at SCA events and campfires, and work to revive songs of ages gone by.

We had a limited performance schedule. Traditionally we performed for local SCA events (with a focus on a public demonstration at Fort Knox each September and medieval carols in the local Mall each winter). By the end of our time we had even had a few concerts that were just us!

LG&M has been defunct since about 2009, but here’s our medieval music setlist:

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Medieval Music

Round of Three Country Dances in One: Collected by Thomas Ravenscroft, 1609

John Kiss Me Now: Collected by Thomas Ravenscroft, 1609

Hey Downe Downe: Collected by Thomas Ravenscroft, 1609

Hey Ho, Nobody Home:Anon.,round collected by Thomas Ravenscroft, late 16 th century

Sumer is a Cumin In: Anon.,part-song from the 12 th century

I Am Athirst : Collected by Thomas Ravenscroft, 1609

Three Rounds as One – Hey Ho Nobody Home, Rose Rose, and Ah Poor Bird : Collected by Thomas Ravenscroft, 1609 (arranged by LG&M)

When Joan’s Ale Was New: Anon. 1594

Come Again Sweet Love : John Dowland 1597

Can She Excuse My Wrongs : John Dowland 1597

Now is the Month of Maying : Thomas Morley 1595

Oh Lusty May : Anon. c.1550

Where the Bee Sucks: text William Shakespeare The Tempest: Act V, Scene 1; music Robert Johnson, late 16 th century

Pass Time with Good Company: Henry VIII, early 16 th century

Greensleeves: Anon. first mentioned in 1580 (it was first used in a Christmas carol, “The Old Year Now Away Has Fled” in 1642)

All in a Garden Green:John Playford’s collection “The English Dancing Master” 1651;

Oh Mistress Mine: text Shakepeare, Twelfth Night: Act II, Scene 3; tune Anon.;

The Northern Lasses Lamentation to the tune Goddesses ; or, The Unhappy Maids Misfortune : John Playford’s collection “The English Dancing Master” 1651;

Farewell Adeiu (to the tune of Selliger’s Round) : Anon.

Country Man’s Delight (to the tune of Selliger’s Round) : Anon.

Young Men and Maids (to the tune of Selliger’s Round) : Anon.

Lord Randall (Durante My Son): roots in Italy, in the early 1600s; the earliest English versions are from the late eighteenth century, and our earliest musical records are 19th century.

The Carrion Crow: Anon. 1450 (and was still being sung in “the colonies” after the 1600s.)

Three Ravens:Collected by Thomas Ravenscroft , 1611

Twa Corbies : a variant of Three Ravens, loosely dated to the late 16 th century (meaning that the original, Three Ravens, is possibly quite a bit older.)

Antiphon for the Virgin (Cum Erubureint): Hildegarde von Bingen, early 12 th century

Magnificat chant: traditional chant, this version published in 1624

Sicut Cervus : Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594)(br> Easter Sequence Chant: Wipo of Burgundy in the 11th century, this piece, both tune and text, still exists in the Roman Catholic Easter mass.

We also like to sing non-medieval music – some songs are written by SCAdians from far away kingdoms; some songs written by those of us before you. Some songs are modern songs that have the “feel” of the middle ages or life in the SCA.

Welcome to the Current Middle Ages : Derek Foster, 1979

Song of the Shieldwall : Malkin Grey and Peregryn Wyndryder (mka unknown)

Savage Daughter : Wyndrith Berginsdottir (mka Karen L Unrein, 1990)

Shield My Kinsmen : Wyndrith Berginsdottir (mka Karen L Unrein, 1990)

Lifeblood, a Viking Drinking Song : Wyndrith Berginsdottir (mka Karen L Unrein, 1993)

Tale of Jaden’s Shield : Aneleda Falconbridge (mka Monique Gibouleau, 2003)

O’er By the Watch Tower: Lord Gwillim Kynith (mka Brian Hubbard, 2004)

Ode To Endewearde: Aneleda Falconbridge (mka Monique Gibouleau, 2004)

The Parting Glass : 1770s Irish, at the earliest, but of good SCAdian sentiment and a lovely way to end a good bonfire

 

A few years back I was in a great group called Leafy Greens & Mutton, and we did mostly period music.

We had a nice setlist of Yule pieces which I researched for our flyers and concert programs, and before Geocities really does go dark, I thought I’d add it here:

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A Carol Bringing In the Boar’s Heed
Lyrics by: Wynkyn de Worde. Unfortunately, only the last page of Jan van Wynken’s “Christmas Carolles”, printed in 1521, survives, but it includes portions of this carol, which appears in many different forms in later publications. This song is traditionally sung during the Christmas Feast at Oxford

Good King Wenceslas
This story owes its popularity to the popular melody, which is actually that of a Spring carol, “Tempus Adest Foridum” (“Spring has unwrapped her flowers”). Although the lyrics were evidently written by J.M. Neale in 1853, the melody appears in the Swedish “Piae Cantiones” of 1582.

In a Manger He Is Lying
Polish Carol, 16th Century

Lo How a Rose
Es Ist Ein Ros, 15th Century German carol, Translator Unknown; Arr. by Michael Praetorius, 1609

The Holly & the Ivy
This popular melody and text were recorded in Mowbray’s Christmas Carols in 1861, but he claimed that it appeared in “an old broadside, printed a century and a half since” (roughly 1710). It is apparently much older even than that; the phrase “the merry organ” appears in Chaucer’s “Nonne Preestes Tale”, and holly and ivy are common motifs in pagan celebrations which predate the Christian influence in Europe.

In Dulci Jubilo
Words: Nun singet und seid froh, attributed to Heinrich Suso (ca. 1295-1366). Folklore has it that Suso, hearing angels sing these words, joined them in a dance of worship. Translation from The Oxford Book of Carols, 1928; Music: “In Dulci Jubilo,” 14th Century German melody

There Comes a Vessel Laden
1608, Andernach Gesangbuch

Covertry Carol, Luly, lulay
One of the most haunting of the carols written in the minor key, Coventry Carol was sung in the pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors, a mystery play put on by local guilds in Coventry, in the 15th century. The most familiar text is that of Robert Croo (which we sing), written in 1534. The Coventry Plays are recorded as having been witnessed by Margaret, Queen of Henry VI, as early as 1456, by Richard III in 1484, and by Henry VII in 1492.

Tommorow Shall Be My Dancing Day
The New Oxford Book of Carols suggests that the song was originally part of a medieval Mystery Play. (It is also cited by some sources to be of the 19th century.) This carol appears in Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern by William Sandys in 1833, and in many broadsides of that period. However, most historians date the text from before the 17th century.

Wassail Wassail
Gloucestershire Wassail, traditional English, but at least some verses are believed to be from the middle ages

Bring a Torch Jeanette, Isabella
French Provençal Carol by Émile Blémont; French Tune adapted by Seguin from Charpentier (late 1600s)

I Saw Three Ships
This song appears in John Forbes’ Cantus, 2nd. ed, and is also known as “As I Sat On A Sunny Bank”. It probably dates from the 16th century.

Riu Riu Chiu
Text by Mateo Felcha the elder,
Spanish Traditional, 16th Century

The Old Year Now Away Has Fled
Words: English Traditional, From a Black Letter Collection, 1642, Ashmolean Library, Oxford; Tune, Tudor traditional “Greensleeves”

Hey Ho Nobody Home
Traditional Round, Thomas Ravenscroft, published 1609

O Come, O Come Emmanuel
“Veni Emmanuel,” 15th Century French Plain Song melody; Some sources give a Gregorian, 8th Century origin

God Rest You Merry Gentlemen
This melody appears to spring from the Cornwall countryside in England, and the lyrics appear as early as 1770 in the Roxburgh Ballads, but it is apparent from references in earlier texts that the melody (of which there are actually two, though only one is familiar in America) dates from a considerably earlier period. It is commonly considered the “most popular” Christmas Carol in England.

 

Information was gathered from a variety of sources, including:
Christmas Carols Which the Tudors Would Have Sung By Wendy J. Dunn http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/tudor_england/20536/4
The Hymns and Carols and Christmas Music During The Middle Ages http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com