While on the topic of Irish traditional music, heres an instrumental piece by William Byrd, and here are some notes to assist in joining the dots: Pistols gibberish in his reply to the French soldier in Act IV, Scene IV, of Shakespeares Henry V was recognized by Edmund Malone in 1790, to contain the distorted Gaelic name of a tune, Callino Casturame, or Calen o custure me. The accepted translation of the title now is that due to Prof. Gerald Murphy, Éigse i pp 125-9 (1953), Cailin o Chois tSiuire Me, or in English I am a girl from beside the [river] Suir. This was found in a late 17th century Irish manuscript to be the title of a song, but the song is not known to be extant. The earliest known song associated with the tune is an English one that was entered in the Stationers Register on March 10, 1582 as a broadside ballad with the title Callin o custure me. No broadside copy of this song has survived, but the song was reprinted in 1584 in A Handefull of pleasant delites. In this songbook the song is entitled A Sonet of a Louer in the praise of his lady. To Calen o Custure me: sung at euerie lines end. Calen o Custure me in the song, is simply an interlaced refrain, and does not have any direct connection with the song, and was obviously, as far are singers were concerned, simply a nonsense refrain. Except for this interlaced refrain, the song is a rather common praise of mistress type of song, such a common type, in fact, that even parodies are quite common. Callino will here be used to designate the song in Handefull specifically, and the tune generally. Callino is not appropriate for a girl for beside the Suire to sing, and it is obvious the English song was in no way related to the lost Gaelic one which supplied its tune. An account of the use of the tune for broadside ballads in England is that of C. M. Simpson, The British Broadside Ballad and Its Music, (BBBM) and that will here be extended. Discussion of the tune, however, will here be confined to its use in England. Readers interested in Irish and Scots Gaelic songs connected to the tune are referred a book by Breandan Breathnach, Folk Dances and Music of Ireland and a subsequent article by Alan Bruford, The Sea-divided Gaels, Eigse Cheol Tire, Vol. 1. Breathnach included a reduce facsimile of the Ballat Lute MS copy of the tune, p. 17, and the tune in modern 6/8 time, p. 19. The tune is again given in 6/8 time in the recent Sources of Irish Traditional Music, I, #3, 1998. Under the tune heading Callino Casturame, Simpson noted several copies of the tune Callino in manuscripts of the late 16th and early 17th century. John Ward has added references to three more early copies of the tune (JAMS 20). I have found no record of any printed copy of the tune prior to that given by Wm. Chappell in 1858, Wm. Byrds arrangement in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. . . . https://youtube/watch?v=a-InVRWuOzo
Posted on: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 15:14:13 +0000
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