Celtic series, part 4

This is the final entry in the Celtic series, which offers a preview of a documentation essay I am preparing now and hope to publish by the end of April.    [17 May 2017: see this entry--link--for an abstract and a link to the published essay.]

Of the four categories, the third is represented here with one more tune: "long" cadences where the lower and upper registers are connected by a stepwise sequence. The others are in category 4: modal tunes, or tunes showing a modal heritage.

"The Ruins of Killmallock" differs from the tunes discussed yesterday in that its B-section is concerned throughout with scaling the octave, down and up, rather than keeping the upper and lower registers separate until the run to the cadence. The result is a clear unfolding of the 6-8 clausula vera figure (see the final two bars).

Modal tunes are difficult to assess on a number of counts, not least being reliability of the transcriptions. If the tunes are as old as their modal turns suggest, then there is also the likelihood of multiple regional or individual variants, only one of which would have been captured in the particular published version. In the two dozen sources I am using for the documentary essay, only a small number of modal tunes appear, almost all of them in two volumes of Irish melodies.

The "Kerry Jig"--in two versions from different sources--is the easiest to read. Beginning in A minor, it closes in C major with a simple rising line, C: ^5-^6-^7-^8.

"The Oyster Wives Rant" is a reel, a Dorian melody (on A) assuming the i-VII-i harmony one associates with Celtic music nowadays. The boxes block out the fifths frame: A4-E5, G4-D5, E5-A4. I haven't marked the possible lines involved, but A4-G4-(A4)-B4-A4 is possible in the lower voices, and a modal primitive line E5-(D5)-E5-G5-(A5) in the upper.

"Thou fair pulse of my heart" is a slow ballad, not a dance tune. Although it is a song, it makes interesting use of lower and upper registers in a manner similar to the fiddle tunes. At the beginning G4-D5 is unfolded, then D5 is extended with a neighbor note Eb5. In the continuation phrase a scale (boxed) moves directly up to F4 and the close is on ^8. In section B, the registral order is reversed—as we've seen several times already in the fiddle tunes—with the upper one first (see directional arrows beginning in bar 9). The slow-moving cadence in the lowest register (boxed at the end) is a surprise.

Finger and Bingham, Airs Anglois, part 1

George Bingham, 40 Airs Anglois dont les 16 prémiers sont de Mr. FINGER & les 24 suivantes de Mr. George Bingham, published in Amsterdam, 1704 or 1705, by the active and successful music publisher Estienne Roger, who also brought out several other collections by Bingham between 1702 and 1706. Not much is known about Bingham. He was a probably a violinist, was certainly a "musician in Ordinary in the Private Musick" at the Royal court from 1689 to 1696, at which time he was dismissed over a financial dispute with another musician. Since his collections from Roger are dedicated to his students ("Messieurs ses Disciples"), we may assume that Bingham was active at least till 1706, perhaps still in London or possibly elsewhere. Gottfried (or Godfrey) Finger was a Moravian musician who was a viol virtuoso, a contemporary of Bingham, and also worked in London at about the same time.

This Air by Godfrey Finger is a menuet in small binary form, with three theme-sized units of 8, 9, and 10 bars, respectively. Focus on ^5 in the A section (circled notes, bar 1) cedes to ^8 in bar 9, then to a ^5-^8 frame in bar 18. The upper note remains primary and a stepwise rising line from ^5 is secondary -- see the final six bars.  The notation, btw, is from a modern edition by Hans-Thomas Müller-Schmidt that is available on IMSLP: link.

This menuet, also by Finger, defines D5-F5 at the outset, a frame that changes to C5-F5 for the expanded second phrase (seven bars!), with similar motions to the Air in G Major to end, but some confusion in distinction between voices: the lower, rising line is more prominent here, the upper line about ^8 less so; indeed the lower line seems to meet and then "subsume" the upper in the final two bars. The result is more dramatic than I have shown it: a line from C5 going up as far as G5 before settling back to the tonic note F5.

This Jig is by Bingham. The figure is a familiar one: period with identical openings in antecedent and consequent (boxed notes) and, in the latter, an ascent from ^2 ( = V: ^5) to the cadence in the dominant key. For a traditional Schenkerian, this is a common figure elaborating an interruption. My only problem with that is the effect in the consequent is of a perfect balance (not a simple hierarchical relation) between the originating ^2 and the line that follows.

Button and Whitaker's Selection of Dances (1808)

Button and Whitaker's Selection of Dances, Reels and Waltzes, for the Piano Forte, Harp, Violin & German Flute. With Figures. At least 18 volumes of these were published, four of which (ns, 8, 9,11, 18) are available through IMSLP: page. These were first uploaded to the Internet Archive, incidentally, where no library or archive source is given. There, volumes 8 & 9 are marked as being published in 1808 (there is no year given in the score itself), volume 11 in 1809, and volume 18 in 1811. All these are approximate dates.

In volume 9, "Time's a Tell Tale" begins with a solid ^1-^5 interval frame, where ^1 has priority (circled in the first strain). The frame is reversed in the second strain (see "--> ^5-^8" at the beginning) and a simple ascending line moves up within it in the last phrase (boxed).

"Sir Gilbert Go Softly" refers to a comic ballad, but whether this Hornpipe tune is the one commonly associated with it, I don't know. In any case, what could be a triadic frame—boxed in bar 1—gives over to the upper fourth in bars 3-4 and dominates in the second strain. In the graph below the score I have pulled out the voice-leading that works in both cadences.