minstrel: Troubadour and Trouvere songs in English

[Tadhg O Cuileannain]

I do both--I sing "Byrd one Brere" in modern English (a version I've modified from
Hoppin's, because I thought some of his lyrics just didn't work very well), and I have
come up with my own English lyrics to "Sic mea fata" (Carmina Burana 116) and the abbess
song I posted a while back.  But I usually sing the first verse to "Sic mea fata" with
the Latin lyrics just because I like the sound.  I was trying to do an English version of
the Cantigas di amigo of Martin Codax, but it just felt wrong, so I'm learning the
Galician-Portugese.  But I wouldn't do a long song in the original language--the worst
crime a minstrel can commit is boring the audience, and you really can't expect people to
try to pretend they understand.

Tadhg

dglenn at radix.net wrote:

> Between top-quoting and bottom-quoting I'm a little
> confused about attributions, but:
>
> > Lord knows that the "do we perform in the original lingo?" debate has
> > been going on since day one of early music-  still, from the viewpoint
> > of the re-enactment scene, I think that the emphasis must fall fairly
> > heavily on translated text.  After all, Mistress Linette, have you ever
> > spent an event conversing solely in period French?
>
> This is something I've been wrestling with as well (unsurprisingly).
>
> When any of the groups I'm in sings "Belle Qui", we always do it in
> French and nobody seems to mind.  To my ear, it actually loses something
> in English.  (Then again, I know just enough French for it to sound
> like it ought to make sense, if you know what I mean.)
>
> OTOH, I've been planning to add "Edi be thu" to my repertoire, and
> have been wondering how it'll fly in Middle English.  Perhaps ME will
> be "just familiar enough" even for modern English speakers who don't
> quite understand it.  Or perhaps the MEGO[*] factor of an unfamiliar
> language will be enough to distract them from the perky melody.  Thing
> is, I _like_ it in ME.  (I find myself singing it in the shower.  Sticks
> in the brain, it does.  Maybe not as tenaciously as "Douce Dame Jolie",
> but I don't know how the words scan to that, having only ever heard it
> as an instrumental.)
>
> I'm trying to have my cake and eat it too -- I'm planning on using a
> singable translation of a couple verses, and using a mix of modern and
> Middle English verses for some audiences.  Wish me luck coming up with
> a suitable version from the translation I've got!
>
> There's a certain _sound_ and _feel_ to the ME lyrics, the way those
> combinations of phonemes bump up against one another, that is as much
> a part of the music to me as the melody is.  (No, that's not true of
> every song, but I'm more likely to like the ones to which it does
> apply.)  I don't feel that "Bryd on a brere" would lose as much in
> translation.  *shrug*
>
> The thing is, for *re-enactment* audiences, I'm _more_ inclined to
> sing in the original language.  No, I don't know enough ME to converse
> in it, nor hang out with others who could do so.  No, I don't expect
> every re-enactor to be a language scholar.  But I do feel that it's
> important that we expose each other to _some_ things that are "as
> period as possible".  Period songs are a step in the right direction,
> translated or not; getting SCA audiences _accustomed_ to hearing the
> old languages (*as well as* hearing period songs translated) would be,
> IMNSHO, a good thing.
>
> I think there's a place for both original and translated versions in
> re-enactment settings.  And I'd like to hear both done.
>
>                                         -- Glenn
>
> [*] "My Eyes Glaze Over"
>
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