{"id":1082,"date":"2016-03-13T23:08:20","date_gmt":"2016-03-13T22:08:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elizabethanpartsongs.nl\/wordpress\/?page_id=1082"},"modified":"2016-09-26T16:36:12","modified_gmt":"2016-09-26T14:36:12","slug":"part-3-complete","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.elizabethanpartsongs.nl\/wordpress\/contents-summaries\/three-elizabethan-partsongs\/part-3-complete\/","title":{"rendered":"Part 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

THE ART OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS<\/strong><\/h2>\n

A textcritical approach of the Elizabethan partsongs<\/i><\/p>\n

\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

P<\/b>RELUDE<\/b><\/p>\n

A short introduction to the third and final part of this paper.<\/i><\/p>\n

One of the most outstanding features of the human mind, is its strange\u00a0incapability to accept – or even to recognize – the most obvious facts. That is\u00a0to say: inconvenient facts.\u00a0Such an ostrich like attitude is in general no help to improve knowledge.\u00a0But this is not always a disadvantage. As demonstrated in that mental case\u00a0known as politics; the noble art of selling chalk for cheese. A country would\u00a0be ingovernable if its inhabitants refused to buy it. Problems must only be\u00a0expected when politicians start to swallow the stuff themselves. Like that\u00a0day when a disgraced Welsh courtier had convinced himself that the Prime\u00a0Minister was selling the country:<\/p>\n

To prevent that from happening, Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex,\u00a0launched on Sunday eight February 1601 a coup d\u2019\u00e9tat against the\u00a0government of Elizabeth I of England. An action that led him straight to the\u00a0scaffold. Which was at the time considered a fairly normal result. But the\u00a0Essex rebellion is unique in both planning and execution. The motive was\u00a0imaginary to begin with. A personal feud with the PM was apparently not\u00a0enough to serve Essex as a justification. And the Earl made his move\u00a0while half his men were still on their way to London. The advantage of\u00a0surprise would have compensated for their absence, but what on earth\u00a0made this former commander of the Queen\u2019s Expeditionary Forces to neglect\u00a0the necessity to attack according some plan?<\/p>\n

The result was surreal. Instead of seizing the unprotected Westminster\u00a0Palace, with the guarantee of instant victory, or the Tower, which would\u00a0have secured him at least a firm grip on London, Essex launched a surprise\u00a0attack on… lunch. While government was racing in reinforcements from all\u00a0directions, the rebels were for three precious hours reinforcing the inner\u00a0swordsman, untill all momentum of their action was spoiled.<\/p>\n

The only reason for the Essex rebellion to keep scholars occupied, therefore is its upbeat; the notorious performance of Shakespeare\u2019s 1595 history\u00a0play; \u2018The Tragedy of King Richard the Second\u2019<\/i>. To the pleasure of a more than\u00a0receptive audience, this play on the succesfull coup of 1399 had proven\u00a0itself the previous evening, as staged on short notice by Shakespeare\u2019s own\u00a0company, a revolutionary piece of art in the most literal sense of the word.\u00a0It took a thorough inquiry before authorities decided that the players had\u00a0been fooled into assistance. Yet, it is not impossible that Shakespeare,\u00a0being the proteg\u00e9 of deputy rebel leader Henry Wriothesley, had been\u00a0informed in advance, or even had purposedly assisted in the fooling itself. By lack of a\u00a0source of inside information, research on this matter is\u00a0restricted to inventing theories, and discussing their plausibility. All in the\u00a0reassuring certainty that no hard evidence will ever come to light to prove\u00a0Shakespeare guilty of high treason. Discussing the matter on an abstract\u00a0level is a pleasant way to keep the mind occupied, but what can be gained\u00a0by blackening a great artist\u2019s reputation for real?<\/p>\n

In regard to Shakespeare\u2019s political preferences; less than nothing. To the\u00a0audience nothing should matter but the quality of his works. But this quality\u00a0is of course not always answering to the highest standards.<\/p>\n

Especially the Victorian ones on decency are somewhat overdone to judge\u00a0lines written to please people more familiar to the symptoms of syphilis than\u00a0to soap. These standards however, have been in common use deep into the\u00a0final quarter of the twentieth century. Forcing people for a long period of\u00a0time to turn in public a blind eye to a significant aspect of some of\u00a0literature\u2019s greatest masterpieces. An aspect only returning to a certain\u00a0degree of acceptability very recently, due to television\u2019s increasing influence\u00a0on society. Taking away all need for experts, facing it, to submerge their\u00a0heads in sand.<\/p>\n

And so, in the autumn of 2004, I finally found the courage to prepare my\u00a01991 analysis of the short love song\u00a0O Mistress Mine<\/i>\u00a0for publication (At last\u00a0television has achieved something positive).<\/p>\n

Written for the comedy\u00a0Twelfth-Night<\/i>, the song\u2019s first public performance seems to have taken place during the twelfth night of Royal Court\u2019s 1600 Christmas revels,\u00a0being the sixth of January 1601. Which, as it happens, dates the completion\u00a0of the play about the time Essex started to prepare for rebellion. But as a\u00a0rule love songs stay clear from such trivialities as political upheaval, and\u00a0therefore my analysis has so far produced only dates on human interaction\u00a0of a more friendly nature.<\/p>\n

As the overall title of this paper shows, my analysis is to a great extend\u00a0tributary to the 1913 release of a cycle of three Elizabethan partsongs by\u00a0the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958).<\/p>\n

Part One, titled; \u2018An impossible combination\u2019, demonstrated which way a\u00a0set of three independent poems by different authors establishes a single\u00a0story about reduced virtue. The second part; \u2018Adults only\u2019 revealed whose\u00a0virtue it was Vaughan Williams seems to have had in mind, when he wrote\u00a0his music.<\/p>\n

This final part will deal with the consequences of fooling following three\u00a0innocent texts into co-operation. And in the process we will unavoidably\u00a0experience that there is a lot of wisdom in this old saying from German\u00a0origin:<\/p>\n

Every consequence leads to the devil.
\n<\/i><\/p>\n

—<\/span><\/p>\n

—<\/span><\/p>\n

Sweet Day<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0(ca. 1625)<\/p>\n

Sweet day! so cool, so calm, so bright,<\/em>
\nThe bridal of the earth and sky,<\/em>
\nThe dew shall weep thy fall tonight;<\/em>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0For thou must die.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sweet spring! full of sweet days and roses,<\/em>
\nA box where sweets compacte<\/em>d lie,<\/em>
\nMy music shows ye have your closes,<\/em>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span>And all must die.<\/em><\/p>\n

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,<\/em>
\nLike\u00a0<\/em>seasoned timber, never gives;
\n<\/span><\/em>But though the whole world turn to coal,
\n<\/span><\/em>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span>Then chiefly lives.<\/em><\/p>\n

George Herbert (1593 – 1633)
\nOriginally\u00a0‘Virtue’\u00a0<\/em>but this setting omits four lines
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

—–<\/span><\/p>\n

The Willow Song<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0(1603\/04)<\/p>\n

The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree,<\/em>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Sing all a green willow;<\/em>
\nHer hand on her bosom, her head on her knee,<\/em>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Sing, willow, willow, willow:<\/em>
\nThe fresh streams ran by her, and murmur\u2019d her moans;<\/em>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Sing, willow, willow, willow;<\/em>
\nHer salt tears fell from her, and soften\u2019d the stones;<\/em>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Sing, willow, willow, willow:<\/em>
\nSing all a green willow must be my garland.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Words from Shakespeare’s\u00a0‘Othello’<\/em>
\nOriginally\u00a0‘The Song of Willow’<\/em>, but this setting omits four lines
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

—–<\/span><\/p>\n

O MISTRESS MINE \u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0(1600)<\/p>\n

O mistress mine! where are you roaming?<\/em>
\nO! stay and hear; your true love\u2019s coming,<\/em>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0That can sing both high and low.<\/em>
\nTrip no further, pretty sweeting;<\/em>
\nJourneys end in lovers meeting,<\/em>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Every wise man\u2019s son doth know.<\/em>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What is love? \u2018t is not hereafter;<\/em>
\nPresent mirth hath present laughter;<\/em>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span>What\u2019s to come is still unsure:<\/em>
\nIn delay there lies no plenty;<\/em>
\nThen come kiss me, sweet-and-twenty,<\/em>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span>Youth\u2019s a stuff will not endure<\/em>.<\/p>\n

William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616)
\nThis\u00a0setting of\u00a0‘Carpe Diem’\u00a0<\/em>omits Morley’s four line repetitions<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

Due to a barrage of spam, the comment option had to be disabled.<\/p>\n

Serious replies will be copied to this page from the link below<\/p>\n

enter a comment<\/a><\/p>\n

—<\/span><\/p>\n

—<\/span><\/p>\n

CONTENTS <\/strong><\/p>\n

Part One<\/a> ; or, An Impossible Combination<\/em><\/p>\n

Part Two<\/a> ; or, Adults Only<\/em><\/p>\n

Part Three ; or, Revolutionary Art<\/em><\/p>\n