Once, Twice, Thrice has unmistakable Purcell musicality. So... Sent from my iPhone
> On Aug 10, 2018, at 5:37 AM, Alain Veylit <al...@musickshandmade.com> wrote: > > I seem to remember reading about Purcell being particularly targeted by this > kind of mirthy-ful mis-attribution. My memory can well be wrong. Most of > Purcell's music was published posthumously and it was very prolific (800 > works for someone who died at age 36). Playford, the publisher of the Orpheus > Britannicus, may have had an interest in stretching the attributions of > (particularly bawdy) pieces to a famous and respected musician, if only just > for fun and financial gain -- > > I am a little bit suspicious that such a high brow musician could also be the > celebrated author of so many popular tavern songs. It is not impossible that > he actually wrote 200 songs and 50 catches, all the while composing more > serious stuff on the side just to make a living, but it does not seem > impossible either that among those 250 very profane works some popular tunes > directly issued from the taverns found their way under his name, for sheer > publicity purposes. "Pox on you" and the "Indian queen" might be the fruits > of the same mind, but did he have time to do both really? I admit I don't > have any solid proof, but I am also highly suspicious of English publishing > practices at the time (before the first copyrights law) . I would be happy to > be proven wrong and recognize a truly ubiquitous genius. Also, theater music > was definitely a source of income, but catches were unlikely to provide much > financial support to the composer, while they would be for a publisher. > > Just imagine if J.S. Bach was credited by a contemporary publisher with a > song entitled "Once, twice, thrice, I Julia tried", would that raise an eye > brow?? Just curious: did Mozart compose anything we'd consider "bawdy" or > tavern material?? Or other composers, besides Lasso?? > > > > On 08/09/2018 10:06 PM, howard posner wrote: >>> On Aug 9, 2018, at 9:15 PM, Alain Veylit <al...@musickshandmade.com> wrote: >>> >>> Like Henry Purcell, who seems to have found his name attached to a very >>> large number of bawdy songs in 17th century England, if I recall correctly. >> Is there any reason to think he didn’t write the music for all those >> catches? I’m not aware that his authorship has ever been questioned. >> >> He lived in an age of relaxed sexual mores and worked a great deal in the >> theater. >> > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
