Description
Of the surprises that arose while completing my long-planned book Art Songs of the Burgundian Era, 1415–1480, the greatest was the number of the most widely copied songs of those years that are plainly transmitted with the wrong text. Already in the 1950s Sylvia Kenney had shown that Walter Frye’s Ave regina celorum, by far the most widely copied song of the 1450s, almost certainly began life with an English ballade text, even though there is no trace of any other text in its twenty-four sources from all parts of Europe (only none from England). We had all rather forgotten that, until Alexander Erhard’s dissertation (2010) made it almost certain that the famous O Rosa bella, ascribed to Dunstable or Bedyngham and the most often copied song of the 1440s, also began life with an English text, again despite eighteen sources and over twenty related compositions from all parts of Europe (only none from England); and I now have an English text that seems likely to be the correct original. Only recently has it become clear that the most often copied song of the years around 1480, Fortuna desperata, ascribed to Busnoys or Felice, cannot possibly have begun life with that text, though I do not yet have any clear view of its origin. Only at the last moment did it strike me how odd it is how many of these wrongly texted songs are among the most often copied of the century; or perhaps it would make more sense vice versa, that so many of the most often copied songs were repeatedly copied with texts that seemed more suited to purpose, leaving no clear hint of their wrongness. The general conclusion here must be that if the music was good enough it could circulate widely carrying the wrong text,
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