Dear Stewart, To be honest I don't know what edition our director got this from. He's transcribed his score into a music program and printed it out in larger type without all the incidental comments of the publisher and/or composer and that's what we're singing from. He mentioned the July/truly pronunciation to us in order that we sing it that way but gave us no further insight into the origins of the direction as written on the score.
While I have a copy of S&B's edition of Morley's First Booke of Ayres, April is not in there. I see that S&B sell an individual sheet of this song and I'll have to see if I can get a copy. I'll drop a line to the von Huene Workshop in Boston to see if they carry it. Otherwise I'll order it direct from S&B and just wait for the British Post to catch up to the U.S. Post. On a related note of pronunciation, I have sung the Boar's Head Carol with two different groups. The director of the first had us sing the first line "The boar's head in hand bear I, bedecked with sage and rosemar-eye" while the director of the second changed "I" to "we" and pronounced rosemary properly. I love language and am always interested in trying to figure out the pronunciations of period English within the context of whatever I'm reading, be it poem, song, play or document. Thank you for your comments and insights. Kind regards, Craig At 07:17 PM 3/17/2006, you wrote: >Dear Craig, > >You could always play along with the choir on your lute . There is >an intabulation of the lowest three voices of "April is in my >mistress' face" in Lbl Add. MS 15117. > >It sounds as if you are using the Stainer and Bell edition with the >blue cover. > >Best wishes, > >Stewart McCoy. > > > > You make a good point here, and as an example I give you the song >April is my Mistress' Face. The choir I sing with is currently >learning this one for performance, and the score our director gave >us has a note at the bottom that claims the word "July" must rhyme >with the word "truly". I don't have the exact attribution from the >transcriber of the score in front of me but ostensibly he makes a >claim to this being correct for the period and context of the song. > > > > Regards, > > Craig > > > > > >To get on or off this list see list information at >http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
