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Medieval Minstrels and Folk Balladeers: An Analysis of Orfeo in Celtic Music and Literature

Heredos, Rosemary M.

Abstract Details

2016, BM, Kent State University, College of the Arts / School of Music, Hugh A. Glauser.
The Breton lai Sir Orfeo, a Middle English romance preserved in the Auchinleck Manuscript (National Library of Scotland, MS Advocates 19.2.1), was produced in London in the 1330s, and is likely based on an earlier, lost, Old French work, the Lai d’Orfey. The genre of the Breton lai, which originated in France, became popular in England by the fourteenth century. Sir Orfeo is, therefore, a Celtic interpretation of the Orpheus myth, in which the King of the Fairies replaces the role of Hades in the abduction of Orfeo’s wife. Like the French lais of the twelfth-century poet Marie de France, which preserve the metrical and folkloric traditions of minstrel music, the rhythmic quality of the Auchinleck Sir Orfeo suggests musical influence. The poetic telling of this legend may be analyzed as both literary and oral in tradition, and the three different versions of the lai found in the Auchinleck MS (early fourteenth century), the British Library MS Harley 3810 (early fifteenth century), and MS Ashmole 61 found in the Oxford Bodleian Library (late fifteenth century) are the result of a mixture of memorial evolution through minstrel performances and the scholarship of scribes, or perhaps even literate minstrels. Ties to this medieval story can be found in the two sixteenth-century fragments of a Scottish poem called “King Orphius” and later in a folk ballad, “King Orfeo,” the text of which was catalogued by American scholar Francis James Child (1825–1896) in his English and Scottish Popular Ballads, published between 1882 and 1898. This ballad remains alive through the performances of many folk singers in Scotland and the Shetland Islands, and exemplifies the power of oral tradition, which remains an integral component in the culture of the folk music and storytelling of the British Isles. By examining both the similarities and differences between these medieval manuscripts and later Scottish and Shetland sources, scholars and performers are able to trace an oral tradition that occasionally manifests itself in the written word. The folk singers of Europe, and particularly of the British Isles, continue to display these strong oral traditions that often have medieval ties. Through close examination of the texts and extant musical sources that are contemporaneous to each era, it is possible to reconstruct a historically informed performance of a medieval romance that could plausibly find audiences at classical concert halls and at folk or medieval festivals alike. The performance portion of this project includes a lecture recital in which I will sing the first two hundred lines of the Sir Orfeo lai in Middle English (based on the Auchinleck Manuscript text), the melody of which was derived from an anonymous thirteenth-century trouvere tune. I will also accompany myself on harp with various improvised chord progressions to enhance the storytelling aspect of the performance. The second half of the lecture recital will include a performance of the Child ballad “King Orfeo,” which I will sing, with interludes on Irish penny whistle. By recording the process by which I reconstructed the Sir Orfeo lai and arranged the Child ballad, I hope to enable other musicians interested in medieval and folk music to perform these—and other lais and ballads—throughout their careers.
Theodore Albrecht (Advisor)
Susanna Fein (Committee Member)
Don-John Dugas (Committee Member)
Timothy Culver (Committee Member)
52 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Heredos, R. M. (2016). Medieval Minstrels and Folk Balladeers: An Analysis of Orfeo in Celtic Music and Literature [Undergraduate thesis, Kent State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ksuhonors1462977417

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Heredos, Rosemary. Medieval Minstrels and Folk Balladeers: An Analysis of Orfeo in Celtic Music and Literature. 2016. Kent State University, Undergraduate thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ksuhonors1462977417.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Heredos, Rosemary. "Medieval Minstrels and Folk Balladeers: An Analysis of Orfeo in Celtic Music and Literature." Undergraduate thesis, Kent State University, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ksuhonors1462977417

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)