Song of the Wild Hare

I get wild hare ideas sometimes, and yesterday was a prime example.

I decided that I should learn some songs that my persona would sing, either for entertainment, or just doing chores around the house. I know several English songs from the 1500's, but no German songs either in English or German.

I decided that this needed to be remedied. So off I went to do some research, and found all sorts of fun stuff that I thought I'd share.

First off, its quite easy to find neat songs in lots of other languages! (I'll post the German stuff in a separate post).

The Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads collection has a nice selection of broadside ballads and song sheets. It works great if you know the title of the song or the first line because the search by date function isn't available.

A database of vocal music of the "French" Renaissance has midi files, PDF trascriptions of the modern notation and a scan of the original work in period notation.

I think this one was the coolest find though, especially if you are doing DUTCH
The Dutch Song Database contains more than 125,000 songs in the Dutch and Flemish language, from the Middle Ages through the twentieth century. Its organized quite well, so you can find all the songs that have the same tune, or have similar words. Plus there are MP3's of many of the songs.

The neatest part is that they did a recording project of the Souterliedekens, which are rhymed psalm translations in Dutch, set to popular tunes, published in Antwerp in 1540. It is the first complete Psalter in any European vernacular.

Since these psalms were set to popular songs, the tunes for lots of other songs from the same period have been saved.

Song of the Wild Hare, German Songs

So in my quest to find easily accessible pre-1600 songs in German, I ran into a couple of road blocks...

While there are plenty of Liederbuch on Google books, there are precious few with the melodies that go with the words, if you're lucky they tell you what tune goes with the words. And those that do have melodies... well a lot of those don't have documentation stating when the song is from.

Die historischen Volkslieder der Deutschen vom 13. Bis 16. Jahrhundert is a great set of books. It has both the words and the melodies, however its very difficult to match up the words in volumes 1-4 with the right song in volume 5. Further more, the songs are written in a half modern/ half something else notation, so its not exactly the "read it and go" source that one would hope for.


However, Fünfzig ungedruckte Balladen und Liebeslieder des XVI. Jahrhunderts
By Franz Wilhelm Ditfurth has both words, melodies and lists where they got the tune from.

I've specifically chosen songs from the book that are pre-1600 and printed in Germany. (He included some of the Dutch Souterliedekens and I didn't include those in this set)

1536, O edelstolze Fraue
1582, Mir ist als ob ein Winter kalt
1571, All Glück von mir abscheiden ging
1586, Mein jumg frisch Herz ist mir verwunt' Von einer schönen Frauen
1571, O Annelein, wie seyd Ihr schön
1573, Ich bin in Eurem Dienste
1573, Weiss ich ein schönes Röselein
1549, Schau ich in Eure Augen
1512, 1549, O edel zarte
1534, Schwer Leid hat mich umfangen
1537, In aller Welt Mir nichts gefallt
1537, Trag ich in meinem Herzen Ein edel Der ich
1512, O edle Frau
1563, Nach irh dahin Steht all mein Sinn
1559, Weiss mir ein Mäglein schön von Art
1546, Sie ist gar säuberlich und fein