What sort of music is there? 2 of 5

John Wilbye's First set of English madrigals (London, 1598) includes a four-part version of this piece which has become popular in modern times. The top and bottom parts are essentially the same in the two versions; the second part in the Växjö version has partly the alto, partly the tenor of the four-part version, an octave higher, making a proper cantus secundus. There is always an octave or more between the upper parts and the bass, characteristic more for 17th-century than for 16th-century music, and suggesting that the Växjö version is a later arrangement; it might have been made in London, or in Sweden, or even somewhere else.

The use of sharps and flats is different in the two versions. The last section of the four-part setting is in G-major, that of the Växjö version is in g-minor: it is clear that this is not just careless copying, since there are extra flats written in the bass part. There is then the question of what other notes might have been sharpened or flattened while singing: it is clear that this depended partly on how skilled the singers were, but that everyone was expected to hear that the note below the tonus (tonic) should be a semitone, that final thirds should be major, and that one avoided a tritone. These have been suggested in this transcription by additions above the notes: sharps and flats in front of the note are original. The result is still charmingly different from the version known today.

The Swedish words are rather sensitive, and fit the music unusually well for a translation.

Performance: following 17th-century practice, all parts may be either sung or played; extra parts may be improvised above the bass on an omnivoca (polyphonic) instrument (lute, harpsichord etc.); either or both of the upper parts may be transposed down an octave, so the piece works not only as SSB, but also STB and TTB; or the bass may be transposed up an octave, SSA; etc., as described, e.g. by J.H. Schein in his Musica Boscareccia, 1632.

Half-note = a slow heart-beat, about 60/min., or slower to express the words. The whole-note sitting on both sides of the bar-line in the top part belongs on both sides - it is syncopated.