As the editor of volume 22 notes, with implicit apology, "The work [of gathering these pieces] has been rendered more troublesome owing to the fact that in many cases the original words are so grossly indecent that later editors have reprinted the music with new words, but without indicating what was their original form" (iii). The solution: "it has been thought best in the present edition either to alter the original words as little as possible or to write entirely new words, but retaining the opening phrase of the originals and inserting some play on the words, such as always distinguishes the catch from the round or canon; which course has been pursued is indicated in the notes." The singing of rounds and catches was part of men's entertainment, and the topics are largely confined to drinking, politics, and varying but often misogynistic views of women. Acknowledging all this—and also admitting that I did not include 2 or 3 pieces that would have been appropriate otherwise but whose texts, even as editorially curated, were still too offensive—here are the six.
1. Ascending figure in the third voice.
2. Wedge figure with the lower voice 1 coming up to ^8 while the upper voice 2 descends from a strong focal note ^3, A5 (as written).
3. Unusual minor key; not ascending cadence figure in voice 3 but return to a focal note ^8 (as G5, written).
4. As in no. 37, a minor key with ^8 as focal tone, but now G5 is traded between voices: bar 2 in voice 1, bar 3 in voice 3, and bars 4-5 in the voice 2.
5. Still another minor key, with the design very like no. 42.
6. If anything, the status of the focal tone ^8 is even stronger in this, with that note beginning voice 3, reached in voice 4 in bar 2, double neighbor figure in voice 3, bars 3-5, and cadence in voice 4, bars 5-7.
