William Mundy's 'Vox patris caelestis' and the Accession of Mary Tudor

Milsom, John

doi:10.1093/ml/gcp091

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…68 The text of Vox Patris was written by William Forrest, who claimed to be Mary I's chaplain, and Milsom argues that the six-voice antiphon was written for Mary's coronation pageant on 30 September 1553, possibly being sung by the choristers of St-Mary-at-Hill. 69 Forrest also published A New Ballade of the Marigolde after Mary's accession, which praised the queen for her many virtues. 70 The fact that the broadside did not refer to a tune might not be as much of a hindrance as it first appears.…”

Section: Likewise a Similar Market Might Be Imagined For Richard Beementioning

confidence: 99%

Mere claptrap jumble? Music and Tudor cheap print

Hyde¹

2020

Renaissance Studies

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Mere Claptrap Jumble? Music and Tudor Cheap Print The melodies printed on early modern ballads have traditionally been seen as something of a muddle. The case in point has always been the tune 'Damon and Pithias' on A Newe Ballade of a Louer Extollinge his Ladye, published in 1568 by William Griffith (Figure 1). 1 It is the first (and for several years the only) extant broadside ballad to include a notated tune. As the melody appears it is almost unsingable. It contains several tritones, and not for nothing is this interval known as 'the devil in music'. The tune was for a long time seen as catastrophically incorrect music; just a pretty picture to liven up the broadside. 'Mere claptrap jumble', as William Chappell described it, 'to take in the countryman'. 2 This article will outline the problems with the music on the ballad but, by then situating the song in the wider field of Tudor cheap print and music, it will suggest that A Newe Ballade of a Louer Extollinge his Ladye was one of a number of sixteenth-century musical anomalies which demonstrate entrepreneurial printers' willingness to experiment with new products for emerging markets. By exploring some of these unusual pieces in their wider context rather than in isolation, it complicates our picture of Tudor musical culture. Some of the results are necessarily speculative, but the article seeks to open rather than close debate. The broadside ballad genre, of which the Newe Ballade appears to be an example, was wellestablished by the 1560s. Its standard features included two columns of text in black-letter type printed on one side of a single sheet of paper. The text was often surrounded by a decorative border and the sheet sometimes contained illustrative woodcuts. Indeed, broadside ballads do seem to date back almost to the beginnings of English print. One early black-letter broadside, known as Verses on the seven virtues, has an estimated publication date of about 1500. 3 Despite its narrow, flowered woodcuts dividing the page horizontally, separating one verse from the next, it is recognisable as a broadside ballad. More familiar is An Elegy on the Death of Henry VII, published in 1509. A large woodcut of the king on his deathbed ornaments the head of the sheet, between the royal coat of arms and the 2 crowned Tudor rose, all surrounded by a floral border. 4 Although there is substantial damage to the left-hand side of the sheet, it appears that the text is in two columns of black-letter font. At the end of each of the seven verses, a refrain laments that '…henry the seuenth alas alas lyeth dede'. Unfortunately, the top of the page is also missing, so it is impossible to know if the sheet once went by the loquacious title which was typical of these ballads, or if it also included a tune reference. By the mid-sixteenth century, ballad printing had settled into all these routines with varying degrees of conformity. A Newe Ballade of a Louer Extollinge his Ladye conforms in all significant ways to these conventions, except for the notation. Among both the l...

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Section: Likewise a Similar Market Might Be Imagined For Richard Beementioning

confidence: 99%