Mi Contra Fa

Miracle, New Joys!

This was a quick and dirty translation of Verbum patris humanatur O O, based on the liner notes and performance of Gothic Voices on their recording, "The Earliest Songbook in England."  We're doing an Anglo-Saxon Yule demo in a little over a month and I wanted to have something ready for it.  It's one of the later Cambridge songs and dates to around 1200, and it's a Christmas hymn.  Pretty standard fare: Christ is born of a virgin, this is a new thing, peace and joy!  There was one delightful line about "The Creator becomes one with creation" that I couldn't quite shoehorn in this go-round, and what I subsituted (that Christ will end death) is not in the original.  It is a rather common sentiment elsewhere; I know I saw it in "Christ and Satan" when I was researching "Christ and Theseus."

That constitutes the entirety of my documentation for this one!

 

 

Word of God is made a man, sing O O
Angel takes the maiden's hand, sing O O
She agrees to heaven's plan
And she will bear a boy
Hei! Hei!
Miracle, new joys!

Such a thing has ne'er been known, sing O O
None so born but Christ alone, sing O O
Creator steps from off his throne
And death he will destroy
Hei! Hei!
Miracle, new joys!

Strange and holy is this thing, sing O O
Salvation to the world he brings, sing O O
Modest maiden's praises sing
Our voices we employ
Hei! Hei!
Miracle, new joys!

Gift to all is born our Lord, sing O O
Earth and heaven him adore, sing O O
God and man in sweet accord
And peace we shall enjoy
Hei! Hei!
Miracle, new joys!

Christ and Theseus

Documentation can be found here.

Theseus bold   Athenian prince
Away to Crete    walks the sea-road
Seven youths    and seven maids
Sacrifices    to sins of the queen

Mighty warrior    Minotaur mains
Kills the monster    Cretan horror
Steals the princess    stealthy departs
With children of Athens    creeping for home
Hero he's called    for hard-won battle

How much more honor    heaven bestows
To Lord on High    who harrowed hell
Descended the depths    devil to fight
Satan he's conquered    sin's first father
Ancient enemy    evil's own author
Tough-hided minotaur    mere thrall in his hall
But Christ defeats him    drives him down deep
Binds him in chains    chastises him well

No mere fourteen    led forth from that place
Just forefathers     gentle virgins
Righteous prophets    pagans of virtue
Died in darkness    devil did claim them
But no longer he holds them    the Lord sets them free
Leads them all laughing    to light-lands above
Til one remains        - Mother Eve

Ariadne was left    languished on Naxos
Eve asks for mercy    in Mary's name
Bright daughter descended    from sinful woman
Of her Christ was born    brought into the world
One sacrifice for all    even for Eve
He lifts her up    helps her to heaven

Most mighty hero    all hall-fame his due
No man surpasses    his masterful deeds
Praise his name        people who hear this

The Harrowing of Hell

Chalice of the Sun God's theme this year is Theseus freeing the kids tithed to Crete.  I can't make the event but I can write something for it.  Writing as an Anglo-Saxon, I want to make the analogy to the Harrowing of Hell and the freeing of the just souls.

First crack at harrowing Google for sources:

Poems and prose from the Old English

In a footnote in an article on Beowulf.

Wikipedia on the early liturgical drama.  The Book of Cerne.

Middle English Harrowing of Hell book.

A translation of Christ and Satan (contains a Harrowing).

 

 

Rolandskvadet

So I finally got around to listening to Trio Mediaeval's "Folk Songs" recording.  I bought it at the used CD place a while ago; it's Norweigian folk songs sung in the Trio's ethereal style.  It contains "Rolandskvadet," listed as "medieval ballad," and it's a Norweigian version of the Roland story.

Looking here about deflates any thought that this is, in fact, a medieval ballad preserved with music.  There was a "saga of Charlemagne" that includes a version of Roland, but that would be prose.  So, not this.  I'd guess it sits about where the Robin Hood ballads collected by Child sit - the source material is definitely period, and the musical style is antique, but you can't actually authenticate it past the 1800s.

Here's Glittertind's metal version of the song; GNY, a neo-medieval Danish group, also performs it.

Still, I'm going to throw it on the translation pile.  It's Trad, but it's Trad with clear medieval roots and a flattish melody that fits with what I've been reading about oral epics.  It's at least as neo-medieval as anything I'd compose myself.

Edited to add: A random translation of the Glittertind lyrics, of which there seem to be more than the Trio's liner notes.

Inertia

Hey, y'all.  Been a while.

I'm working on it, I'm working on it.  Two small kids, one with some special needs, take a bit out of a lady.  I've been cranking out - get this - fan fiction*, because it's fun and relatively easy and doesn't require documentation or dealing with Finale (musical typesetting) or any of that.  Also, the audience is a wee bit larger than for historically-informed Anglo-Saxon performance, and I'll admit the complimentary feedback has been nice.

Actually, it's been interesting, watching the authorial community and its relationship with said feedback.  I could probably write a couple of essays on motivation for writing, peer approval and so on.  Another time, perhaps.

Buuut I managed to crawl out of my hole and attend Noisemaker's Schola in the East, taught a couple of classes and got a pep talk from my friend Mistress Linette - she thinks I should do a few more translations and put out a book.  

I've also acquired a nifty new, high-quality digital microphone, and my husband has more or less said I can have the FlipCam.  The video tutorials I want to do for lyre playing, and the .mp3 files I want to record for the site, are closer to reality.

I also wrote some poetry for the Duke Gyrth Oldcastle Memorial Smackdown, and I should post that directly.

So, the gears are starting to turn again.  The projects currently lined up are more the 'do at home' sort (rather than the 'do on lunchbreak' sort), and there's always a challenge to find time for that, but we'll see.  Precisely because I don't do this for the wild popular acclaim, but because it's deeply interesting to me, I know I'll come back to it - even if I have to take a sabbatical to recharge once in a while.

*Dragon Age: Origins.  It's a video game.  I know, shut up.  I'm having fun with it.

Blah

It is extremely difficult to find the motivation to write up class notes when one's experience with holding classes at any non-University event is about even odds to get either zero or one student.

Making Period Performance Fun

1. Translate things so people understand them.  You might have to tinker with the original rhyme or  meter.

2. Select pieces with modern appeal.

3. It's okay to massage a humorous piece so that it's funnier.

4. There's a spectrum:

Original -> Translated -> Excerpted -> Summarized -> Change verse form and/or variations to music -> Period material, period form, period music, new composition -> Period material, period form, modern music, new composition -> Period material, modern form, modern music, new composition

It's okay to not be at the far left of the spectrum.

Ba-dum-bum *pisssh*

Wild Goose Flies

Yee-es.  It's been a while, hasn't it?  I discovered video games.  It's been great fun but absorbing.

But we've got Baronial Birthday this weekend and their Excellencies need a departing poem.  I've written one for Johanna and one for Sean and Elizabeth, so I mean to do one for Rorik and Janina.  What with the "goose thing" they have, a goose motif presents itself. 

I mean, geese.  They fly away.  It works for leave-taking.

This was a first draft, written Friday night on an airplane:

A flock of geese gladdens summer days
Harmonious honking heralds them
Bills are bright in gorse-grey faces

But autumn arrives early this year
Geese all gather; goslings have fledged
Soon they take flight, fast-beating wings
Southward they travel, seeking warm weather
Wise are the geese! who go in the fall,
Return in the spring - soon they come back
No long parting this - the patterns of life

I left a blank space after the "bills are bright" line, thinking there needed to be some kind of bridge and yeah, there really does.

Welcome in croft to craft their nests
Raise their goslings at river's edge
Dwell with us - abide a while

Aahh. That's better.

This was... overall better than I thought it was when I wrote it.  It may just do.

Yep, still here

I got stuck on the tune for the last piece, distracted by New Amusements in real life, and didn't have any deadlines to work towards.  At least the last thing is now resolved, as I need to write a poem for Their Excellencies of Storvik and prepare a new class.

So the blog lives again!

O Come, My Sweetest Lover

This never got posted as a finished product?

O come, my sweetest lover
And ah and oh
What pleasures we'll discover
And ah and oh and ah and oh

I'm dying with desire
And ah and oh
To love-making I aspire
And ah and oh and ah and oh

So with your key come swiftly
And ah and oh
My door will open quickly
And ah and oh and ah and oh

Text: Translation of one of the Cambridge Songs (c. 1050-1100, likely Continental German in origin. Original text in Latin.)
Tune: Original, meant to be somewhat evocative of chant

Lessons learned

I worry more about a command performance than a competition.  If I mess up during a competition, the worst thing that happens is that I lose.  But when someone has requested me to play for an occasion, and I mess that up... it feels like giving a broken present.

I was requested to play my wire harp for my church's summer solstice service.  Normally, I do my improv as meditations, but the organizer wanted "Sheebeg, Sheemor."  Now, I know that; it's actually the only O'Carolan I know.  So I got out the harp for some crash practicing.

"Let's go simple," I thought.  "Melody with octave-grabbing on the strong notes."  Except I'd grab sevenths and ninths instead of octaves.  "Melody with moving drone!"  Better, but still not performance-ready.

Back when the Storvik Music Ensemble was running, we had a violinist.  He played well enough solo but had no group experience.  No problem, that's what ensemble was for.  So I'd give him easy parts - really easy.  Like, one note per measure.  And he seemed offended.  He could play more difficult stuff than that.

But not under pressure.

I eventually just played the melody, with one open fifth at the ending.  And it worked.  I think I missed two notes, but they weren't critical ones and I kept the rhythm going - you could legitimately call it a "variation," I think.  Certainly not ear-splittingly wrong.  I was happy with the performance, and I suspect I would not have been if I'd gone for something even a smidgen more technically challenging.