Another Pr.E.S.S.I.E. Presentation

[capri0mni]

This is another of my favorite carols. I've only heard it played/sung a couple of times. But I think it should be more widely known.

It dates from around 1620, so if you ever wondered what Christmas was like for Shakespeare, this gives some clues.

All Hail to the Days

All hail to the days that merit more praise
Than all the rest of the year,
And welcome the nights that double delights
As well for the poor as the peer!

Good fortune attend each merry man's friend
That doth but the best that he may,
Forgetting old wrongs with carols and songs
To drive the cold winter away.

Tis ill for a mind to anger inclined
To think of small injuries now,
If wrath be to seek, do not lend her your cheek,
Nor let her inhabit thy brow.

Cross out of thy books malevolent looks,
Both beauty and youth's decay,
And wholly consort with mirth and with sport
To drive the cold winter away.

This time of the year is spent in good cheer,
And neighbours together do meet,
To sit by the fire, with friendly desire,
Each other in love to greet.

Old grudges, forgot, are put in the pot,
All sorrows aside they lay;
The old and the young doth carol this song,
To drive the cold winter away.

When Christemas' tide comes in like a bride,
With holly and ivy clad,
Twelve days in the year much mirth and good cheer
In every household is had.

The countery guise is then to devise
Some gambols of Christemas play.
Whereat the young men do the best that they can
To drive the cold winter away.

To hear the tune (or get a .pdf of the dots), copy and paste the bold text below into the text window at Concertina.net's Tune-o-Tron, and click on "submit" (if it doesn't work, you may want to try turning off your pop-up blockers).

X:1
T:All Hail to the Days
T:(A 17th Century Carol)
M:6/4
Q:1/4=200
K:Dm
z6 z4D2|F3ED2A4d2|c3BA2f4F2|G4A2B3cB2|A6-A4d2|c3BA2c4c2|
B3AG2B4B2|A3GF2E3DE2|D12||

If you find that tune a bit dreary, it's probably because it's in D minor. You could try in D major, here:

X:1
T:All Hail to the Days
T:(A 17th Century Carol)
M:6/4
Q:1/4=200
K:D
z6 z4D2|F3ED2A4d2|c3BA2f4F2|G4A2B3cB2|A6-A4d2|c3BA2c4c2|
B3AG2B4B2|A3GF2E3DE2|D12||

Or in D flat (which I kinda like best, I think):

X:1
T:All Hail to the Days
T:(A 17th Century Carol)
M:6/4
Q:1/4=200
K:Db
z6 z4D2|F3ED2A4d2|c3BA2f4F2|G4A2B3cB2|A6-A4d2|c3BA2c4c2|
B3AG2B4B2|A3GF2E3DE2|D12||


[Poll #638926]

[Edit: if you had trouble with this tune, I fixed the ABC File, and I gave you a couple of other key options, if 17th Century musical tastes are not your cup of tea.]

Comments

[pedanther]

I can't get Tune-o-Tron to show me the result; it says it thinks there's an error.


But I am not downhearted, for I am warm and bubbly after reading the Christmas story linked to in papersky's latest post. I just wish I had a livejournal of my own that I could use to point more people to it. (I don't think I have the stamina to go around commenting to everyone on my friends list.)

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

There was an error. I somehow left out the X:1 line that marks the start of the file.

Try it now....

(goes to papersky's Lj to find that story.

Merry Christmas to you, too... even though, for you, it's in the middle of summer, so you don't have to "drive the cold winter away!"

(maybe we should filk this into a Southern Hemisphere version, about beating the heat?)

[pedanther]

The "A10" in the fourth complete bar doesn't show up in the output. I suspect that's a limitation in the Tune-o-tron, though, rather than a problem at your end; *I'm* not sure how to write a 5-beat note, either. ("A8z2" instead?)

*much tinkering to get music and words on one page*

*sounds of piano*

Hmm. I was expecting something a bit more... cheery than that, somehow. Not that it's not a nice tune.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

Well, you know those 'Lizabethans had different musical tastes than ours (just think of "God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen" -- that's not very merry to our ears, either).

Of course, you should probably also imagine this song sung by a dozen or more voices, probably inebriated, with all the attendant harmonies and overtones that that would confer. Compared to that, any single melody line of computer generated music would sound rather thin and sad...

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

The "A10" in the fourth complete bar doesn't show up in the output.

Try this (I "tied" a dotted half note and half note together by writing A6-A4, same with the rests (z) at the start of the first measure):

X:1
T:All Hail to the Days
T:(A 17th Century Carol)
M:6/4
Q:1/4=200
K:Dm
z6-z4D2|F3ED2A4d2|c3BA2f4F2|G4A2B3cB2|A6-A4d2|c3BA2c4c2|
B3AG2B4B2|A3GF2E3DE2|D12||